Can Christians Smoke Weed?

You might want to quibble with any part of this one, you might reject any one of the arguments, but it is impossible for the honest bible reader seeking to apply scriptural principles to not come to the same conclusion.

A Refutation of Infant Baptism 

Here is one of those pesky articles that insists baptism is an issue that actually matters, that it is sinful not to obey Jesus and goes on to insist paedobaptism is not the biblically prescribed ordinance.

Trading dog whistles for klaxons

I don’t usually link to secular articles, but in the wake of the Henry Nowak story and the subsequent aftermath, Mic Wright offers some excellent analysis of the response. You can also read this from Dave Williams.

10 Theses on Intercession

Intercession means praying for other people. This one offers ten specific thoughts about that.

I’d Rather It Sounded Worse

‘In the era of AI, I only get perfect papers. Grammar, sentence structure, vocabulary; all taken care of by the AI caretaker who is editing (and often outright writing) the papers of today. Every sentence that a student writes can be plugged back into ChatGPT with a simple prompt, “Make this sound better.” The students can present to me totally polished papers that are easy to read, factually correct, yet totally soulless. When reading papers in batches, it feels as though I’ve just read the same paper 20 times, even though the subject matter changes. I actually don’t mind if they use ChatGPT as an editor for their papers, so long as its not doing the thinking work for them, but I’ve come to despise the perfection of every paper.’

Stop touching people inappropriately! A Pastoral Critique of Ordination

‘Every week, somewhere in the world, someone kneels at the front of a church. Hands are laid on them, only the right hands but not always right hands (sometimes left). There are always too many people at the front to each be able to touch the individual, so invariably hands are not only laid on the person but also laid on someone laying their hands on the individual. Is this efficacious? Can someone act as a conduit for the laying on of hands from one to another? I find it baffling! Serious faces descend. Important words are spoken. People who usually dress in business causal are suddenly dressed like they have a temp job in a living museum. Then comes the grand announcement, ‘Now you are a minister.’ The person at the centre of the huddle now struggles to their feet having been stuck in that uncomfortable kneeling position for the last 10 minutes. Unspiritual thoughts of hand sanitiser cross their mind and a mental note to wash hair more thoroughly than usual. There is no new radiant glow, no smoke, no predecessor’s cloak fluttering down from above. They don’t then go on to part the water and there is no intrusion of the she-bears even if the new minister happens to be bald. It is all very moving. It is sincere. It may also be muddled.’

From the archive: The greatest inequality is a lack of gospel preaching churches

‘There are whole boroughs without any bible-believing churches in their midst and towns without any gospel witness. There are whole areas of our country full of people who simply do not have access to a bible-believing church that will tell them about their need of Christ; people who are heading to a lost eternity because we haven’t gone to tell them.’