Russell Sparkes is Chief Investment Officer of the Central Finance Board of the Methodist Church. He has been Treasurer of the Linacre Centre, a Catholic medical ethics charity, and was Chairman of the Chesterton Institute, promoting the thought of G.K. Chesterton, particularly its economic philosophy based upon Catholic social teaching. His writings include: G.K. Chesterton, Prophet of Orthodoxy (Harper Collins 1996), an introduction to Chesterton's religious writings, and Sound of Heaven - A Treasury of Catholic Verse (St Paul's 2000). In 2008 he wrote, Global Warming, Catholic Teaching on the Environment for the Catholic Truth Society. He is currently working on a study of the medieval guilds and their modern relevance.

‘The Distributive Alternative’

Russell Sparkes addresses the theoretical background and intellectual origins of Distributism in order to counter some of the ill-informed criticisms made against it by contemporaries and recently revived by critics worried by the renewed interest in it.

A Review of ‘Red Tory’

I can think of no other book that explains so clearly what has happened to centre left thinking, or indeed why New Labour seemed determined to follow in Mrs Thatcher’s footsteps in the economic area.

The Future of the Christian Voluntary Sector

Perhaps the most important aspect of the guilds was the way they promoted works of charity in a poor society where the poor would otherwise have starved.