I originally wrote this post shortly after bushfires near Sydney destroyed 200 homes and took 2 lives. But since then, Typhoon Haiyan has caused much havoc, hardship and loss of life in the Philippines, totally dwarfing the bushfires. But whether it is the fires or the typhoon, their ferocity and the apparent randomness of the […]
Malala Yousafzai has become famous for her fight for women’s education, her courage in the face of threats, and her recovery after a shocking gun attack. Her story has inspired many. And she can teach christians a thing or too.
Black Stump is a christian music and arts festival that has been held near Sydney for the past 25 or so years. I have just come back from my 15th Stump, and it was one of the best ever.
Last post I reviewed the book Faitheist by Chris Steadman, in which he tells how he works to encourage interfaith dialogue, even though he is an atheist. What should we christians think about dialogue with other faiths, and with atheists? Is it a compromise of what we believe?
I have several times posted here and elsewhere about relationships between christians and atheists, and my wish that we do better at this, for example: Listening to atheists The way we treat deserters Atheists vs christians: does it have to be war? Is anybody listening? So when I saw a book in our local library […]
Dave Tomlinson is a British christian who has always pushed the envelope: a leader in the UK house church movement in the 1980s, founder of the Holy Joes “church” in a pub and author of The Post-Evangelical in the 1990s, and now Church of England vicar at St Lukes in London and author of How […]
So, we have seen that the structure of our brains can be changed by what we focus our attention on, and that this can lead us to “harden our hearts” and be inflexible in our thinking, especially as we grow older. What can we do to prevent this?
The Bible occasionally talks of people hardening their hearts, or having hard hearts (e.g. Pharaoh in Exodus chapters 7 to 10). This concept is now common in the English language. Brain plasticity suggests it may be closer to literally true than we might have imagined.
I’ve been reading a couple of books on the human brain recently, and have been especially impressed by new discoveries about ‘neuroplasticity’. I think they help understand some christian practices I learnt many years ago.
I have written many times on this blog about problems I see with the way most churches operate. So it is a pleasure to be able to write about a community of christians who seem to be doing things ‘right’.