Apologies if you are expecting some specifically Easter-themed snippets this week. I’m afraid, at the time of collating this, I haven’t read all that many Easter posts. Nevertheless, perhaps you can content yourself with the list below by reading my thoughts on Easter that I posted earlier in the week – you can read that here. Nevertheless, this week’s snippets follow below.

What the weather was like

I could not co-sign this one harder: ‘It’s probably best to get this out of the way quite quickly: I have a visceral dislike of specifically Christian fiction and, more broadly, an innate hatred of anything propagandist. Whether it is the smorgasbord of books that sport a cover with a woman staring mid-distance across a prairie or the unwitting comedy of rapture novels, the soap-opera-set aesthetic and the mass market ethic of what drives the Christian fiction industry makes me feel a little unwell. In addition, creative work that commodifies content in favour of The Big Message, from any religious or philosophical position, has a habit of leaving me behind and (to my mind at least) constitutes a dereliction of what it is to tell a story.’

Sullivan’s Kidnapping and a Lesson on Risk

This one looks at risk from a biblical perspective.

Is the Resurrection of Jesus Likely or Unlikely?

I did manage to get at least one Easter-themed snippet in here: ‘Hume has been roundly (and decisively) rebutted and philosophers now realize that one cannot prove miracles are impossible. But, not to worry, now there’s a new argument. Now the argument is that miracles are simply improbable.’

The Revenge of The Rotisserie Chicken

You will have a reasonable guess where this one is going. But I think it makes a good point about both the importance, and yet the perils, of eating together regularly.

Is Paul Describing a Believer or Non-Believer?

The debate over the “wretched man” of Romans 7 rumbles on; a debate I was writing papers on when I was doing my masters 15 years ago now, and am sure was going on well before that! I don’t hold the view outlined in the post, but I think it does a good job of outlining an alternative understanding. Nevertheless, it pays to remember many good, godly people with whom I agree on so much disagree with one another on this question.

A brief explanation of baptism

This is a brief, but fairly helpful, explanation of what is happening when a new believer is baptised.

From the archive: The Africa Cup of Nations and church culture

‘I have long been convinced that it is far easier to be multicoloured and multiclass than it is to actually be multicultural. Most of us are quite happy to have people of different ethnicities in the room and we’ve no problem with people from other social classes coming into the church. And if they stick around, we’re glad enough for that to happen. But the rubber hits the road when those same folks begin to wonder why Biblical culture so frequently ends up looking almost identical to the majority culture.’