Welcome to my website
Trying to see the world from a Christian perspective
This Blog
I only write occasionally here now, as you will see. However, there is an archive of over 2,000 posts which I’ve made over the last 20+ years, which are all still accessible.
Latest Posts
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Why is the church obsessed with sex?
It’s a legitimate question: if you’re an outsider, it looks like the church wants to talk about nothing else at the moment. One obvious answer to the question is that sex is the area of our culture which rubs up most obviously against the traditional Christian understanding – hence the clashes. In previous years there…
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Don’t rely on one Bible translation!
Quick bit of obvious advice today: Don’t rely on a single translation of the Bible when you’re doing some serious Bible study. Today I was preparing a sermon on John 1:19-34. And, because I’ve been learning New Testament Greek over the last couple of years, I feel like I needed to get my money’s worth…
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Secularism: What does it mean to you?
The title of this blog post is taken from an article I read yesterday. The Guardian basically asked a few different people what secularism meant to them, and published their responses. To be honest, the article doesn’t encompass a huge range of beliefs (most of the people there seem to be atheist / humanist in outlook),…
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Crossroads for the CofE
Recently, former Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey warned that the Church of England was in danger of dying out within a generation. (Synod has responded by “voting to set up a committee” – oh, how Anglican… at the same time, positive that the church is actively looking towards evangelism.) It seems to me that with…
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Review: Is God anti-gay?
I’ve just finished reading “Is God anti-gay?” by Sam Allberry. It didn’t take very long – it’s less than 100 pages long! In the book, Allberry uses his experience as a pastor who experiences same-sex attraction (SSA for short) to write a sensitive and compelling piece about what the Bible says about sexuality. I’d recommend…
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Review: The Story of Christianity
I’ve just finished reading “The Story of Christianity” by David Bentley Hart. He is, as you may recall, the author of “Atheist Delusions” – a book I highly recommend. Anyway, I came across the book recently, and as I’d enjoyed Atheist Delusions – and as the Kindle edition was 56p on Amazon (still is, at…
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Paedophilia and Orientation
I read something interesting today: the American Psychiatric Association (APA) now classifies Paedophilia as an orientation: In the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM V), the American Psychiatric Association (APA) drew a very distinct line between pedophilia and pedophilic disorder. Pedophilia refers to a sexual orientation or profession of…
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Surviving Parenthood
As I’ve mentioned a couple of times now, lately I have become a Dad. Now that Lydia is four weeks old, I thought it might be worth sitting down to type up a few reflections on my experience so far. It may be interesting to look back on, and if anyone else out there is…
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Freedom and Order: History, Politics and the English Bible
I’ve just finished reading Freedom and Order by Nick Spencer, who is research director at Theos Think Tank. Some of their output recently on secularism has been excellent, and I also went to hear Nick Spencer do a talk about English politics and the Bible at Westminster Abbey a couple of years ago (about when…
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Head Above Water
Just a quick post again to say that I am keeping my head above the water! Lydia is now ten days old, I can’t believe how fast the time has gone. This week I’ve been gently trying to ease my way back into college life, which has gone fairly well. Lydia is beginning to get…