March 14th, 2018
More than two billion people in the world today identify as followers of Jesus. This includes a fair percentage of inhabitants of the USA, currently the world’s most powerful nation, its most influential via film, TV, social media and popular music, and home of some of the world’s richest people. My country, Australia, still has […]
February 25th, 2018
The facts about Jesus are clearly stated in the gospels, and they don’t change, but people have so many different understandings of him. The Catholic Jesus or Orthodox Jesus is not the same as the evangelical Protestant Jesus, or the Jesus of liberal Protestant theologians. I think there is probably some truth in all portraits, […]
February 12th, 2018
It hasn’t always been comfortable being a man during these #metoo days. Men we might have thought could be trusted have been accused, and often admitted to, all manner of unacceptable, sexually predatory and abusive behaviour, mostly against women. For me, it became most pointed when this last weekend I read a long article in […]
February 5th, 2018
A couple of weeks back I reviewed Kenneth Bailey’s Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes, a book I have found revelatory about Jesus. I have gained many helpful insights from it. Today, some new understandings about one of my favourite gospel accounts – Jesus in the synagogue at the start of his ministry, when he made […]
January 18th, 2018
Book review: “Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes” by Kenneth Bailey. Quite simply one of the most enlightening books I have read about Jesus.
January 6th, 2018
Predictions are a dime a dozen, and predictions about the church in the western world can be awfully generalised. Nevertheless, I found some predictions and warnings by Carey Nieuwhof were worth considering. The predictions clearly relate to the North American church (Carey is Canadian), so a few probably won’t apply to countries like Australia and […]
December 27th, 2017
Child sexual abuse is a terrible crime and rightly loathed by most people. And churches have, tragically, been home to some of the worst offenders. The Australian Government set up a Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse almost 5 years ago. (A Royal Commission is a judicial process that has wide powers, […]
December 14th, 2017
Disarming Scripture by Derek Flood The Old Testament world was a violent place. For a christian, the most troubling violence is surely that said to be commanded by God, whether it be Abraham being commanded to sacrifice his son and heir Isaac, Joshua commanded to exterminate Canaanites who are unfortunate enough to be living in […]
December 5th, 2017
Christianity began as a minority group within Judaism and within the Roman Empire. But from the time Constantine made it acceptable, christianity became the dominant religion, and Christendom was generally the dominant social force, in Europe and colonies in Africa, the Americas and the Pacific. Christianity was often the state religion, most people were nominally […]
November 21st, 2017
I went on a political demonstration today. Well, it was called a vigil, and it was quiet, peaceful and non-confrontational, but it was a protest. It was expressing concern about Australia’s treatment of asylum-seekers, specifically several hundred man on an island in Papua New Guinea, Australia’s northern neighbour. Realistically, there is very little prospect, right […]
A list of all blog posts, in reverse chronological order, is on the Blog archive page.