Faith in Action | Page 24 | Student Christian Movement

Defending the Stranger

21 Mar 2016

The Bible, being a history of God’s people, is in many ways a book about those who are displaced, lost or cast out. This is clear from the beginning. Whether it be being cast out of the Garden of Eden, exiled in Egypt or lost in the desert, surrounded by foreigners, the people of God have had...

Costing Everything

29 Feb 2016

A while ago, my colleague Ellis asked me to write a blog about ‘costly discipleship’, which is a phrase Dietrich Bonhoeffer used. In Bonhoeffer’s view, there could be no Christian faith ‘without discipleship’ and this meant a ‘costly’ following of Christ. When Bonhoeffer said that Christ calls...

Am I my Neighbour’s Keeper? Reflections on the Death of a Dalit Student in India

12 Feb 2016

Rohit Vemula, a young Dalit PhD scholar in Science & Technology from Hyderabad Central University (HCU) was expelled along with four of his friends after a leader from the student wing of the ruling party made a complaint. The five students experienced social exclusion from university...

Reflection on Birmingham Methsoc’s Food Exchange

6 Jan 2016

by Andrew Topping

As the Methodist Society at the University of Birmingham looks back on its first term of the 2015/2016 academic year, we can happily say that we have made progress on our plans for a food exchange scheme made at the end of last year (...

Bombing, Terrorism and Solidarity

16 Dec 2015

On the 13th November, 130 people were murdered in Paris by terrorists linking themselves to the organisation Daesh (IS). As a direct response to those attacks, the UK government recently voted to extend airstrikes into Syria. Is the UK government’s response going to lessen the threat of...

Why are we campaigning for refugees?

24 Nov 2015

From 2015 to 2017, SCM is joining with Student Action for Refugees (STAR) to focus our campaign work on supporting and advocating for refugee rights. Specifically, we are partnering with STAR on their 'Equal Access' campaign, which aims to secure equal access to higher education for refugees and...

Broader, bigger and more participatory democracy

14 Oct 2015

I’ll tell you a secret. I don’t believe in democracy.

What I mean is that I don’t believe in the type of narrowly-defined democracy that exists in this country and that we ‘export’ around the world: I don’t believe in representative democracy. It’s better than some other options obviously...

SCM at the 'Stop DSEI' Day of Action

23 Sep 2015

On Saturday 12th September, a small group of SCMers joined activists and Christians in a day of action against the Defense and Security Equipment International exhibition (DSEI) at the Excel Centre in London. The event followed a week of action leading up to the day, including a 'No Faith In War...

Being a Place of Welcome

10 Sep 2015

‘The tiny victim of a human catastrophe’ said the front page of the Daily Mail last week, with a picture of the drowned Syrian boy Aylan Kurdi being carried out of the sea by a Turkish policeman. This headline came from the same paper that had for weeks been railing against incoming ‘migrants...

Putting Faith into Action

17 Aug 2015

Some people may well think that being a Christian just means professing a faith in Jesus, but Jesus clearly said 'Follow me'. Sometimes, that means literally dropping everything like those first disciples, and doing what we feel called by God to do. It can feel risky, but often exciting, and God...