culture

Why as a Christian I am voting for Labour

by

This is the third in a series of guest posts, in which regular readers of this blog explain why, from a Christian perspective, they intend to vote for a particular political party—or, in one case, why they intend to spoil their ballot paper. In this one, Ali Campbell, who is Youth and Children’s Ministry Consultant at … Continue Reading

Has Preaching Had its Day?

by

Whilst in New Zealand, mostly on holiday and visiting our son on his gap year, I was invited to give a public lecture on the subject of ‘Has preaching had its day?’ This is the introduction and the outline of what I said, which includes exploring the main objections to preaching in contemporary life and … Continue Reading

Can we Dethrone Mammon?

by

Ven. Dr Gordon Kuhrt reviews Justin Welby’s Lent book Dethroning Mammon: Mammon is money or possessions when they are enthroned. The author says there is nothing wrong with money in itself, but when it exercises supreme power (is enthroned) it becomes mammon: evil, destructive and dangerous. A Foreword commending the book is from Jean Vanier, founder of the L’Arche movement which now has nearly 150 … Continue Reading

Can we disagree better online?

by

For the last two days, I have been accumulating material towards a post reflecting on Trump’s executive orders and how much of the response to them fails to explore the facts. It seems odd to me that we can accuse someone of disregard for the facts—and then fall into the same trap ourselves in our … Continue Reading

Can theology save the NHS?

by

By any account, the NHS is in crisis, and a crisis more acute this winter than we have seen before. Some have described the challenges facing the service as a ‘perfect storm’ of pressures, and whilst there is a debate about whether it is a question of quantity of funding or how that funding is … Continue Reading

Is it a sin to be rich?

by

The annual meeting of the World Economic Forum is starting today in Davos, Switzerland, attended by the leaders of the the wealthiest economies and the biggest corporations. And, in what has become something of an annual ritual, Oxfam has expressed its objection to the gross inequalities between rich and poor in the world. Eight billionaires … Continue Reading

What is our theology of food?

by

I was fascinated to watch Gregg Wallace (of Masterchef fame) explore how our food reaches us through supermarkets in his Supermarket Secrets episode looking behind Christmas. I hadn’t realised that this episode was in fact three years old, and even though reviews were previously rather mixed, I found it as fascinating as Greg evidently had. … Continue Reading

When is God ‘coming on the clouds’?

by

Quite early on in Revelation (1.7) we find the phrase ‘I am coming with the clouds’, and it is striking that the near universal view of commentators on this verse is that it is a reference to the return of Jesus to earth, as promised in Acts 1 and elsewhere. (Note that the New Testament never uses the now-popular phrase ‘second coming’ of Jesus, since this pairs the future with his ‘first coming’ in the incarnation, whereas the NT always pairs his return with his departure, as in ‘he will return in the same way you have seen him go’ in Acts 1.11).