Description
Originally published by the Irish Times as a series to mark the year 2000 in a particularly Christian way, this creative collection of articles looks at Christianity from a wide variety of standpoints.
Thus, the series begins with a dissenter, Hans Kung, followed by Michele Dillon on Christianitys treatment of women and Jerome Murphy OConnor on the historical Jesus. Other voices and standpoints are expressed by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Mary Robinson, Racelle Weiman, Dr Zaki Badawi, David Kelso, Dr Trevor Morrow, Rev. Olive Donohoe, Sean Freyne and Father Andrew Greely
Part Two of the book consists of A Brief History of Christianity, a formidable achievement by Irish Times writer Patrick Comerford, which accompanied all twelve articles when originally published. Together they constitute a very accessible collection, valuable for the general reader and specialist alike. (paperback)
ABOUT THE EDITOR
Patsy McGarry is the Religious Affairs correspondent of The Irish Times in the Republic of Ireland. He succeeded Andy Pollack as editor in the mid-1990s. He also is the commissioning editor for articles which are published in the papers Rite and Reason column every Monday. McGarry also writes occasionally on social issues for the newspaper.
A native of Ballaghaderreen, County Roscommon, he is a graduate of University College Galway, and was Auditor of the Colleges Literary and Debating Society in 1974-1975. He has worked for Independent Newspapers, the Irish Press group, Magill magazine, and freelanced briefly for RTE.
In 1989 he set up the first independent radio newsroom in the Republic at Capital Radio (now FM104) in Dublin, having previously worked for four years on pirate station Sunshine Radio in the city.
He was theatre critic at the Irish Press from 1990 until 1995. He received a national media award for comment and analysis in 1992 for Sunday Independent articles on the fall of Charles Haughey as Taoiseach and was awarded the 1998 Templeton European Religion Writer of the Year for articles in The Irish Times on Drumcree, the papal visit to Cuba that year, and articles criticisng the Irish Churches for failing to practice what they preached on reconciliation.
