word | spirit | world | church
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
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
The ‘slippery slope’ is considered a logical fallacy. If I argue against your desire to do one thing because it will inevitably lead to another then I’m engaging in this fallacy. If you go and read a definition of the fallacy it might identify it as an ‘informal’ fallacy because the error lies not in… Continue reading Doctrinal drift
We live in difficult days. My nation has fallen headlong into a sort of Protestant Paganism and is embracing all of sorts of beliefs and practices that are against the way of God. This isn’t suddenly true, it has been growing steadily for some time, and it could all turn in any direction very suddenly.… Continue reading Pastors Need to Stand Up
There’s an old story that used to be often told as a literary cautionary tale, that you don’t hear so much of these days: Faust. In the story Dr Faustus becomes impatient with his limitations and the limitations his various fields of study placed on him. He found no matter how much he learned he… Continue reading Embracing Limits
Have you noticed that we don’t seem to be able to wait? Perhaps you’ve stood in a queue at a shop or waited at a bus stop recently. I stand on the platform waiting for the train to get to work a few days every week. If you have done the same recently, I’d forgive… Continue reading Children of Choice
We live in modernity, the source of all evil, according to some. I’m the sort of grumpy curmudgeon who thinks everything was better before the modern era, by which I mean the last 500 years. This clearly isn’t true. Antibiotics, for one, are a gift we would not want to give up! What is true… Continue reading A Kingdom with a King
We live in an age of expressive individualism. This is a bad thing. While any sort of individualism is a product of Christianity, the form of individualism we currently have that places my desires squarely at the top of the hierarchy of goods is deeply destructive to society, to individuals, and to the church. Once… Continue reading 5 Antidotes to individualism
Last year I bought a new roof. Once they were finished the roofer told me, “that’ll still be good when we’re all dead,” which floored me. I don’t think I’d ever knowingly bought a new thing that would outlast me. Our home is the second house we’ve bought, so I imagine its true for both… Continue reading Evangelical (anti)Culture
I’ve recently finished Tara Isabella Burton’s superb book Strange Rites. The book’s central argument is that descriptions of our age as secular are overstated, and there are three great quasi-religious movements on the rise. More on those movements another time; on her way to them Burton explores a range of subcultures that behave in religious… Continue reading Re-enchanted?
nuakh 