For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away.
Until you can answer the question of why we need to pray, you cannot begin to engage with how to pray. I have been making the case that The Lord’s Prayer is much more a theological statement than it is either a magical formula for unleashing the power of God (which I don’t believe it... Continue Reading →
I find prayer difficult, I will admit. But I suspect it is because for too long I have misunderstood its point. For much of my life, prayer functioned as a mechanism to try to get the universe to work in my favour, all the while trying to concede that if it didn’t work out, God... Continue Reading →
I think it is a very sad comment on the church that I suspect that my son has a better chance of developing a sound Christian theology if I take him out of a Christian school. And before anyone argues that if what I consider to be a “sound Christian theology” and what the school... Continue Reading →
It is hard not to be impressed by Westminster Abbey. Gothic architecture was designed to invoke awe and it does just that. The imposing stonework – centuries old – is nothing short of magnificent. It is easy to feel humbled. There is a stillness in the sanctuary, even with the buzz of the tourists, that... Continue Reading →
The pursuit of truth, I have come to learn, is not an easy path. It is very tempting – as so many are content to do – to find a comfortable, sheltered place along the road and settle there. Sometimes it does seem attractive to me, I need to admit, to just cling to the... Continue Reading →
I hope my regular readers will pardon my relative silence lately. I have been trying to get all my ducks in a row, workwise. To be honest, I am not even sure I own ducks anymore. Certainly we don’t seem to occupy the same farmyard. So I haven’t had time to do a lot of... Continue Reading →
A friend of mine made the following statement to me last week: "The difference between Catholics and Protestants is that Catholics believe in "Jesus and..."; Protestants believe in "Jesus only". He's wrong, of course. Nobody believes in Jesus only. We all add something. And if I were to be cynical, I would argue that Protestants don’t worship... Continue Reading →
People like walls. Walls make people feel safe. People have formed the impression that by keeping Them out, letting Them be with Their own kind, and by keeping Us sheltered inside, everybody can live in peace and harmony. As long as everybody stays on their own side of the wall, everything will be okay. Unfortunately,... Continue Reading →
Picture, for a moment, a hypothetical, completely dysfunctional family. The son’s academic performance is poor and he has become rebellious at school. The daughter’s devotion to her work borders on the obsessive and – although very few of her classmates know it – she cuts herself compulsively. Dad demands perfection from his children. For him,... Continue Reading →
