The panel will discuss Bhikhu Parekh’s new book, A New Politics of Identity (Palgrave, March 2008) covering the impact of globalisation on ethnic, religious and national identities.
The church is running out of justifications for the various anomalies it clings onto, and it is just a matter of time before they go completely, says Jonathan Bartley. We cannot proclaim the message of God's liberating future by clinging to the past.
Actual sea changes in politics come rarely, but they do come, so don't let cynicism make you a functional reactionary, says Johan Maurer, who particularly wishes that the evangelical Christian community would be released from hero-worship and grasped by a biblical vision of social justice.
Westminster easily gets mired in posturing and trading for influence, says Simon Barrow. But there are glimmers of redemption and genuine conviction in the political vocation too - even if we need to go well beyond politics to realise them.
Traditional categories of right and left don't always work when applied to faith, says Giles Fraser. Yet there is no comfort for the 'religious right' in the Christmas Gospel, which is about giving not consuming and love not power-mongering.
Europeans who have no religion are growing in number but are becoming increasingly disadvantaged in the political process, claimed the National Secular Society in the UK at a meeting in the European Parliament on religion and politics.
Kevin Rudd's own values are shaped by faith, says Doug Hynd, but there are conflicting responses from within the churches to the way in which Christians should and should not engage a plural political process.
Modern democratic politics is in danger of turning into a beauty contest and an electoral pantomime, says Simon Barrow. It needs reconnecting with people in civil society, changing institutions and the grassroots.