Forbidden to love?
‘Here is a quote from twitter: “Some people (straight and gay) are called to celibacy. That’s great. But does not mean that all gay people should be celibate. Why would God create someone gay then not allow them to love? There is simply no way that supposition could ever make sense”.’ Dave Williams explains the logic and where it goes awry.
The postmodernism that refuses to die
‘Some of the conclusions of postmodernism are now adopted with little question as cultural “givens” without a felt need to justify them. Why defend stances that large swaths of the culture accept as obviously true? So, what we find is substantial numbers of postmoderns who rarely think of themselves as postmoderns, and who know next to nothing of the literature and debates that occupied so much attention a bare generation ago. They understand neither the theory nor its critics, but they presuppose many of its conclusions.’
The African Church
Eddie Arthur wants to tackle a common misconception about the church in Africa. ‘At the risk of being too subtle, I am absolutely fed up to the back teeth with hearing people tell me that the African church is riddled with the prosperity/health and wealth gospel. There are two reasons for my frustration; firstly, I’m not convinced that generalisations like this do anyone any service and secondly because I’m not sure that Christians in the west are in any place to go about criticising others.’ His follow up here is worth a look too.
The problem of superstitious Christianity
‘The sad reality is many in our churches have such a shallow understanding of God as revealed in Scripture, that their “Christian” theology might be better referred to as Christian “superstition.” Every Sunday, we rub shoulders with men and women who have professed faith in Christ, but continue to hold a “vague and wandering opinion of Deity” (Institutes, 1.4.3) that just happens to include Jesus.’
Islam on Lewis: why Christians should support the right of Muslims to build mosques
David Robertson is on form here. He explains why Christians should support the right of Muslims to build mosques, even in one of the most Evangelical areas of the country.
Five extraordinary benefits of Pentecost
We’re wrapping up our series in Numbers on Sunday and will be moving into a study of Acts. This seemed like a good trailer for what we will be looking at.
From the archive: Church climbing, pride and why I’m not like you
‘Church climbing is a particularly repellent activity. Treating the church as though there is some sort of greasy pole to climb really irritates me. The people that do this are not difficult to spot and are replete in our churches.’