Law

How should we treat Old Testament law?

by

Should Old Testament law be of value to Christians, and if so, in what sense? Dr Carmen Imes is Associate Professor of Old Testament at Prairie College in Alberta, Canada, and did her doctoral research on the understanding of the third Commandment ‘You shall not take the Lord’s name in vain’, published as a monograph … Continue Reading

The Politics of the Table in Luke 14

by

The lectionary gospel reading for Trinity  11 in Year C, Luke 14.1, 7–14, continues to engage with material that is unique to Luke, arranged in Luke’s distinctive order, and bridging the worlds of the original context of Jesus and Judaism and Luke’s context in wider Roman culture. The passage comes in a sequence of episodes … Continue Reading

Should we always obey the government?

by

Donald Trump’s ‘zero tolerance’ policy on immigration, leading to the separation of children from their parents at the US/Mexico border, has dominated the foreign news in the UK this week. As with all such news items, it is much more complex than at first reported, and we need to understand carefully what has been going … Continue Reading

Is grace opposed to law?

by

It is relatively commonplace, in ordinary discussions about Christian discipleship, to hear the idea expressed that grace is the opposite to ‘law’. I think this is intended at a number of different levels: we are forgiven by God’s grace, and not because of (or in fact despite of) how we have lived our lives; our … Continue Reading

Giving it up for God: Leviticus

by

I am working with Sarah Julian and Celia Kellett at BBC Radio Nottingham on an idea to present most of the books of the Bible, one a week, during 2011 as part of the celebrations of the King James Bible. The plan is to read some verses from the book, to give a one-and-a-half minute summary, to hear a human interest story which relates, and then include a short discussion making the connections.

Here are the key verses and summary for the story of Leviticus (‘Giving it up for God’), to be broadcast this Sunday 6th March from around 8.20 am:

Verses: from Leviticus 19
The LORD said to Moses, “Speak to the entire assembly of Israel and say to them: ‘Be holy because I, the LORD your God, am holy.

Continue Reading

Making sense of the Derby fostering court case

by

What are we to make of the court case of Eunice and Owen Johns, apparently refused permission to continue fostering because they could not tell a child that they thought homosexuality was a good thing?

Simon Vibert of Wycliffe Hall thinks that a Rubicon has been crossed. This judgement signals a fundamental change in English law. In a similar vein the blogger Cranmer sees the comments from the judges on equality and secularism as making nonsense of elements of our constitution,

Continue Reading