Who should have the last word on assisted dying in a secular Britain?

I wrote a similar post to this, from a Christian perspective, in response to Charlie Falconer’s comments. This one comes from an atheist arguing for a secular Britain of the kind I would recognise: ‘If a truly secular Britain would have no blasphemy laws (nor “offence” laws acting as surrogates for blasphemy laws), it would also have no issue with religious believers expressing their views in the public sphere. We need to defend secular space from religions demanding privileges. We need also to protect freedom of conscience and religious expression from an over-zealous secular state.’

Eleven hindrances to answered prayer

Here are eleven things that the bible specifically says will hinder us receiving positive answers to our prayers.

Is Christmas a pagan tradition?

Given the popularity of this assumption, somebody usually takes up the mantle each year to say it simply isn’t so. This year, Kevin DeYoung offers his services.

The English Premier League’s identity relegation battle

I spoke about the furore concerning the rainbow armband campaign in the English Premier League and Marc Guéhi’s counter-messaging last week. Here, Steve McAlpine offers his take.

Machines for ministry

We all have machines for ministry, we just don’t always realise it until we come up to a situation where we haven’t yet built the machine: ‘The problem I had with the Assembly was that I hadn’t built a machine to make Assemblies. I was starting from scratch each time, and I was wasting time, energy and focus in the process… I grabbed my planner and started thinking. What would a machine to make Assemblies have to include?’

You are exactly as holy as you want to be

This one is a bit of a gut punch when its key message is set side-by-side with the reality of how I actually am: ‘there is no one who can force us to sin and nothing that can force us to fail to do whatever is righteous in any given moment. There is no one who can keep us from deriving spiritual growth and benefit from any of the circumstances of our lives. No one, that is, except ourselves. If we ever wonder who is hindering our holiness, we don’t need to look any further than the closest mirror.’

From the archive: Can you sing an AI generated song in worship?

‘Here are four reasons why I probably would sing a good song that had been churned out by AI.’