Keeping the faith

Two of my friends have lost their faith in the last three years.
‘Lost’ is a curious word to use here. They didn’t misplace it. It didn’t fall behind the couch. They’re not offering any rewards for it to be found.
I think plant metaphors are more apt here – for one of them, faith shrivelled up [...]

Mighty Men?

There was a Christian conference in Perth recently called Mighty Men. I don’t know much about the content of the conference, but the title bothers me. Are we called to be ‘mighty’ as disciples of Jesus? I don’t think so. I think the world wants men to be mighty warriors, but that Jesus had different [...]

The Shack : theological fiction for the disenchanted

Love it or hate it, in the last year it seems everyone in the evangelical world has had an opinion on William P. Young’s bestselling novel, The Shack.  Whatever its failings, it has moved a lot of people deeply and has them talking about the problem of pain, the doctrine of the Trinity and many [...]

I miss the church year

One of the impoverishments of much of the free church and evangelicalism is its neglect of the church year. Last week the universal church started Lent, but if you went to your typical evangelical church, you wouldn’t know about it. Every year I miss out on Lent and tell myself I’m going to try to [...]

Tom Wright on beauty

In Surprised By Hope, Wright has a chapter on ‘Building for the Kingdom’. He sees building for the kingdom as the task of Christians today. The ‘for’ is important. It’s not building the kingdom by our own effort. Instead, it’s getting on with the tasks God’s given us, which he will – in ways we [...]