June 10th, 2011
A couple of post back, in Good news?, I reflected on how some aspects of the teaching and example of Jesus seemed to be missing from modern “gospel” presentations, and suggested “we could improve our presentation of the good news to be more positive, forward looking and reflecting ‘God’s favour’”. I’ve now had a go […]
June 9th, 2011
In Worshipping the Irrational Jesus in the Huffington Post, Prof Mark Osler offers three approaches to those aspects of christianity we find uncomfortable or difficult to understand or accept.
June 8th, 2011
Is belief in God dying out, in the western world at least? Some recent surveys give some answers, and some challenges for christians.
June 5th, 2011
This is the second in a series of posts on Jesus and history. Not so many years ago, christians could talk about Jesus and quote the Bible as their authority, and it wasn’t much questioned. People may not have believed in Jesus or followed his teaching, but few doubted he lived and taught and died. […]
June 3rd, 2011
Archaeology can tell us a lot about the world of first century Palestine, where Jesus lived, and this is a great help in understanding the New Testament. But can it tell us much about one of the most basic questions of all: are the New Testament gospels accurate accounts of Jesus’ life, based on eyewitnesses?
May 31st, 2011
New scientific studies suggest it is ‘natural’ to believe in God. What are christians to make of this?
May 28th, 2011
Today the Sydney Morning Herald reported (in “He’s not the son of God, just the support act“) that a Sydney Islamic organisation, MyPeace was beginning a campaign “to educate non-Muslims about Islam”. The paper featured the slogan “Jesus: a prophet of Islam”, which will soon be seen on billboards and buses around Sydney. Other billboards […]
May 27th, 2011
Mark summarises Jesus’ initial teaching this way (Mark 1:14-15): Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. “The time has come,” he said. “The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!” The ‘good news’ or ‘gospel’ here clearly relates to the coming of the kingdom of God on […]
May 25th, 2011
John Carroll is Professor of Sociology at La Trobe University in Melbourne, and a secular humanist. He believes secular humanism has failed western society and he has something useful to say to believers about how we communicate to postmodern people.
May 24th, 2011
It seems to be traditional to commence a blog with a slightly idealistic explanation of what you hope it’s going to be about. And who am I to fight tradition? I have spent almost 50 years as a “christian” (a word with too many connotations for me these days), and I seem to have not […]
A list of all blog posts, in reverse chronological order, is on the Blog archive page.