I know adding words to the Bible is not generally approved, but hey. Fairly recently, I was reading the Sermon on the Mount, and I noticed something that had never struck me before. (In what follows, all Bible quotations are from my trusty RSV. The words...
Today we welcome a guest. Judith Leader has been a Christian friend of mine for some years. She became a Christian many years ago while training as a nurse. Below, at my eager invitation, she shares a very personal account of the combination of Jewish...
I once read a romantic novel about a Scottish woman and an English man, set during the reign of Henry VII. Despite culture clash being a major feature of the story, the author did not appear to know that Henry VII of England did not...
Possibly the most famous lines of the Christian poet and hymnwriter William Cowper (1731-1800) are “God moves in a mysterious way/His wonders to perform.” Or you may prefer “Satan trembles when he sees/ The weakest saint upon his knees.” But he also wrote the following: “Sometimes a...
This news story is developing every day. These thoughts may have been overtaken by events by the time you read them. It is alleged that while working in the aftermath of the earthquake in Haiti in 2010, some fairly high-ranking Oxfam employees had sex with prostitutes....
I have just finished reading “Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes” by Kenneth E. Bailey. It took a while, because it is a lengthy read (400+ pages) and sometimes quite densely packed and argued. I would recommend this learned and passionate book very strongly as an aid...
This post may offend. I think I've said this before, but this time it really may. My impression is that one of the reason why some Christians in America could not and would not consider voting for Hillary Clinton was that her feminism included a strong...
I think Ursula Le Guin was the first author who I noticed wrote both for children and adults. Long before JK Rowling was writing children’s fantasy, and schools of magic, there was the wonderful and prolific Diana Wynne Jones. Her first book, “Wilkins’ Tooth”, was published...
Last Saturday I watched the film “Darkest Hour”, starring Gary Oldman. It covers a few days in 1940 at the beginning of Winston Churchill’s premiership, when France was about to fall, and many in the Cabinet felt Britain should enter peace negotiations with Hitler. (Spoiler:...
Something a bit different. A prayer for 2018 inspired by the story of the Magi in St Matthew chapter 2. Father God, of course we know that 1st January really has no more significance than any other, but it may be a time to stop, to...