For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away.
Many Christians are content to adopt a live-and-let-live approach towards the Word of Faith movement. They see them as misguided but basically well-meaning (for example, read the thoughts of Eric Hyde, one of my favourite bloggers: https://ehyde.wordpress.com/2013/06/04/why-do-word-of-faith-christians-become-jaded/). I am not so understanding. I believe that Word of Faith preachers – Creflo Dollar, Joel Osteen and... Continue Reading →
We are often too quick to blame all social problems on systems: poverty is the result of capitalism; bigotry is the result of religion; economic or social problems are the result of a certain political party being in power; education is in crisis because we have the wrong curriculum or assessment strategy. I could go... Continue Reading →
Do we ever have the right to choose when we die? The issue of assisted suicide is topical in South Africa at the moment. On April 30th this year, Advocate Robin Stransham-Ford died only hours before the court granted his application for state assistance in ending his life, after a prolonged battle with cancer. Health... Continue Reading →
I am wary of attempts to reduce life’s complexities into trite truisms, but if I were pressed to summarise life’s journey into one succinct statement of sugar-packety goodness, it would be this: fulfilment in life is dependent on one simple choice: will you walk the path of hope or the path of despair? Make no... Continue Reading →
There are a few profound moments in the book The Lord of the Rings that were not included in Peter Jackson’s wonderful filmic depiction of the story. One is near the beginning of the novel, where the hobbits are protected from the Nazgul that hunt them by a band of migrating Elves. One of the... Continue Reading →
On the weekend we took Nathan to a small guest farm, and on the way back, passing through Modimolle, we passed a memorial for the elderly, women and children who died in the British concentration camp there during the Boer War. The majority of the headstones on the 500 odd graves carry the names of... Continue Reading →
I think that as Christians we are often guilty of reducing the meaning of Jesus’s life to the mere forgiveness of sins. That may sound heretical, but hear me out. I am not suggesting by any means that Jesus’ death on the cross was inconsequential. Far from it. I just think we miss out on... Continue Reading →
The story goes that during the American civil war Abraham Lincoln met with a group of ministers to pray. One of the ministers is alleged to have remarked: “Mr President, let us pray that God is on our side”. Lincoln’s response could teach all of us something vital about prayer and about God’s guidance: “No,... Continue Reading →
For as long as I can remember, I have had a morbid fear of having my haircut. I do not believe that it is an irrational fear. Hairdressers are, frankly, terrifying. I have long argued that anybody over the age of three who requires training to use a pair of scissors should probably not be... Continue Reading →
… suit the action to the word, the word to the action; with this special observance, that you o'erstep not the modesty of nature: for any thing so overdone is from the purpose of playing, whose end, both at the first and now, was and is, to hold, as 'twere, the mirror up to nature;... Continue Reading →
Vapors In The Wind 