In the Gifford Lectures given last month, Diarmaid MacCulloch, professor of the history of the church at Oxford University, reflected on the notion of silence.
Mark Vernon considers that “The lectures present a lively history of silence in the church, and left me with a clear sense that this is a history that affects us all today”.
According to Vernon, “Noisy Christianity is alive and kicking. For individuals who feel the allure of silence, it is off-putting and irrelevant. They might never know that there are profound, useful meditative traditions in Christianity too”.
Mark Vernon is a writer and journalist. His latest book is called How To Be An Agnostic.