For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away.
I can sympathise with Peter. In so many ways he is just like us. If you have grown up in the church, as I have, you will know what I mean when I say that “being on fire for God” is regarded as the optimal state of being for any believer. In other words, the... Continue Reading →
Somehow this advent season has felt different, which I suspect is a result of the journey I have been on in terms of interrogating my own theology. When we put up our Christmas tree recently, as Nathan hung ornaments on every available space on the tree and sang carols loudly, adopting a liberal creativity with... Continue Reading →
I am going to start off controversially: if you believe that entry into Heaven is the Christian hope, you have misread the gospels. More than that, I believe that this belief that Jesus’s primary mission was to win us a free pass through the Pearly Gates is the single most damaging doctrine preventing us from... 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 was struck by something Michael Hardin said (much of what I am about to say about the Lord’s Prayer in the next few posts is derived from his talk here): a prayer is a theological statement. Every time we open our mouths to pray, we are giving utterance to our theologies. If we find... 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 →
With low, brooding rainclouds and gently rolling hills, the Oxfordshire countryside was everything I had imagined it would be. I grew up reading Enid Blyton, Billy Bunter, and William, so driving down narrow country lanes, flanked by hedgerows laden with berries, seemed a bit like coming home after years away. But this was not my... 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 →
It was bound to happen, I suppose. You have heard of Murphy’s Law, right? If anything can go wrong it will? Well, when it comes to me, another Law holds true: namely, that Murphy was an optimist. It was a twelve hour flight and I got stuck next to a “talker”. Now I am a... Continue Reading →
As Dr Peter Enns has pointed out, in his 2014 book: "The Bible Tells Me So: Why Defending Scripture Has Made Us Unable to Read It”, we are as far removed from the world of David and Samuel as the modern world is from the year 5000. Enns is a much respected scholar, who has... Continue Reading →
Vapors In The Wind 