For the first few hundred years of the church’s history the big debate within the church was the nature of Jesus Christ – who, exactly, was he in relation to God? This is where the doctrine of the Trinity came from – as theologians debated and discussed God’s revelation of Continue Reading
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Why we should be grateful for Vicky Beeching
I recently talked a little about Vicky Beeching’s book – Undivided – and why I think it is dangerous for the church. I stand by what I said there – but, at the same time, I’ve been thinking a lot about this lately and I think there are reasons to Continue Reading
Vicky Beeching – Undivided: The power and danger of stories
I’ve mentioned Vicky Beeching a couple of times on this blog, most recently discussing whether it’s right to say ‘Change or Die’ about the church. Yesterday she released her new book, ‘Undivided’, which is her story of how she’s ‘come out’ as gay and Christian, and learned to embrace her Continue Reading
'Change or Die': is the church doomed?
A popular line of argument these days is that the church must either change or die. More specifically, the ‘change’ to happen must include being affirming of same-sex marriage. Vicky Beeching wrote this on Twitter a few days ago: Today many predict that #LGBT inclusion will ‘split the Church of Continue Reading
Review: The Plausibility Problem
I’ve just finished reading The Plausibility Problem by Ed Shaw. The book is subtitled “The Church and Same-Sex Attraction”, and I can understand why that might immediately put people off: surely, we don’t need yet another book on the church’s view of sex? And this is exactly the reason I wanted Continue Reading
The Church’s Mission: What’s the point?
I was recently asked to contribute a piece to the “Mission Matters” magazine in our church, a magazine looking at mission in the local area as well as the wider world. This is what I came up with. One of the privileges and joys of training at Oak Hill was Continue Reading
Thoughts on the Church from 2 Timothy
In our evening services at church, we’ve been preaching through 2 Timothy. It’s an absolutely wonderful book and I do commend it to you – especially if, like me, you are involved in Christian ministry in some way. As we’ve been going through it, I’ve been reminded time and again Continue Reading
Is Atheism enough to sustain a ‘church’?
According to the news today, the “Sunday Assembly” has split. For those of you who don’t know, the Sunday Assembly is a church-style service, only it’s run by atheists. This is the vision from their website*: The Sunday Assembly is a godless congregation that celebrate life. Our motto: live better, help often, wonder Continue Reading
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 Continue Reading
The Church is wiser than our secular society
One of the articles that seems to have been doing the rounds on Twitter lately is “Our secular society is wiser than the Church” by Oliver Kamm (most recently I saw it tweeted by my friend @pandammonium). I often read articles online without responding to them, but sometimes one annoys Continue Reading