I want to take this opportunity to offer congratulation to my friend Glenn People’s over at Beretta on the successful examination of his PhD thesis entitled Religion in the Public Square. In this work Glenn criticizes contemporary liberal thinkers who maintain that religion should be excluded from public life in a liberal democracy. Glenn and I have been friends for years; he studied at Waikato Poly while I did my Masters in the Philosophy department, we both studies biblical studies at BCNZ together, and probably both drove our lecturers nuts, and Madeleine and I followed him down to Otago.

Glenn and I have also had similar trajectories. Glenn did his a undergrad and Masters in Theology and was doing a PhD in Philosophy. I did my undergrad in and masters in Philosophy and did my PhD in Theology. Ironically, Glenn received word that his thesis had passed examination on Friday November 9th 2007 I received word that mine had passed on Friday November 10 2006. We also have very similar interests, as the title of his thesis shows. Madeleine and I really miss the long debates and discussions we used to have at his house in Dunedin.

Congratulations Glenn, you Ruth and the kids have worked really hard on this. I am looking forward to reading your work when all the final amendments and hard binding etc are done. I wish you all success.