word | spirit | world | church
I wrote a few months ago about the so-called ‘quiet revival,’ which I argued is neither quiet nor a revival, but perhaps evidence of a reaction to the meaning crisis, or to sound incredibly pretentious, a metamodern turn. I was more positive about the reaction to the meaning crisis than about the metamodern turn. The… Continue reading On the ‘Quiet Revival’ again
This is a large topic that, as is the nature of blogs, I’m going to think out loud around the edge of. It’s common in Evangelical spaces to be told that you shouldn’t necessarily trust your emotions, instead we’re pointed to eternal truth found in the Bible. It’s common in more Charismatic spaces to be… Continue reading On Emotions
It is of course fair that just because something rhymes doesn’t make it true, and that old adages also aren’t necessarily true just because they’re oft repeated. It’s also true that not everyone is going to be a hundred book a year plus person; in fact, very few people are going to be in that… Continue reading “Leaders are Readers”
I’ve argued at some length, that we need institutions to unite us in UK evangelicalism. What we have may well serve good purposes, but it isn’t managing to unite us, and they aren’t forming us well. There are two, contradictory, impulses to consider here. First, institutions, as Yuval Levin argues, mould us. This can very… Continue reading Institutions, Again
This should be a straightforward question, but to answer it we need to make a number of distinctions. This felt like a largely American discourse until fairly recently, but the term is increasingly being used here in the UK as well. The problem is, it’s a big broad sloppy term that means as much or… Continue reading Am I a Christian Nationalist?
Especially that thing that you’re sure it doesn’t. In John’s prologue we’re told that ‘all things’ were made through Jesus, and that there is nothing that has been made that was made without him. We’re hedged in by the positive and negative affirmations: if it was made, Jesus made it. Paul says something similar in… Continue reading Christianity speaks to everything
Who would be for it? This might see like the easiest thing to argue in the world: exhaustion is bad. Of course there is a kind of tiredness which is good: a body worn out from hard work in the field (he types from behind his laptop) or a mind worn out from hard graft… Continue reading Against Exhaustion
It’s common these days in church circles for people to suggest that we need to see ourselves represented in order to fully participate in something. On the face of it, there’s something very true there. However, I think it’s often confused. What’s true Those who lead us do represent us; this is a key Biblical… Continue reading Do we need to see ourselves represented?
That’s the sort of sentence to bring in the clicks. Of course you want me to caveat that, surely I can’t mean all technology? On the face of it, obviously not. Does a pencil dehumanise us? It’s not clear how that would be a sensible thing to say, and your definition of technology has to… Continue reading Technology dehumanises us
As I write the UK Parliament has voted ‘yay’ to the second reading of a bill to legalise assisted suicide. It’s been wildly reported internationally as being legalised, which is a slight misunderstanding of the system as another vote is required, but it seems likely it will continue to pass. Assuming it does, this is… Continue reading The Church After Assisted Suicide
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