What People Keep Getting Wrong About the Diversity Conversation

This is an excellent one from Michelle Reyes. The things she raises are the lived experience of many working-class people. Her solutions for better conversations on these things are also helpful.

Why do we practice child baptism?

I am not a paedobaptist, but this one outlines why those who are have landed where they do. 

When Helping Hurts in Pastoral Counseling

I have made a similar point about pastoral counselling to this one in my book Independent Eldership (which can be bought here). It is not at all that counselling and therapy is bad, just that it is specifically different to pastoral counselling and most pastors are not trained in it: ‘Multiple times in my counselling ministry, I’ve reached the conclusion that my counselling was having the opposite effect of what I intended. My efforts to make things better were really making things worse. Because I believe my experience is not uncommon, I want to share what I’ve learned about how this dynamic occurs and how counsellors can avoid it.’

When You’re Not Supposed to Feel Like This 

‘Sometimes, our struggles with grief and depression are made worse by feelings of guilt. As Christopher Williams put it, “It is bad enough that I feel low or anxious. But on top of that I feel guilty: for I ought not to feel low, as a Christian. I feel that I ought to be able to cast my cares upon him, for he cares for me. And yet somehow I can’t.” Many Christians have heard the message of Philippians but not the message of Job, and so they’re unprepared when the pain of profound grief hits. There are three things I’d want people to remember when their grief is compounded with guilt.’

How clergy dress sends a message—but which one, and why?

I previously commented on this same story from my nonconformist, low-church perspective (see here). This one looks at it from an Anglican clergy perspective.

Why Couldn’t Jesus Do Miracles?

‘Mark comments that “[Jesus] was not able to do a miracle there” (Mark 6:5). Some, like liberal theologians and Muslims, have used Mark 6:5 to argue that Jesus was not truly God, since he, in their reading, lacked power to perform miracles here. However, Veli-Matti [Kärkkäinen] provides reasons why we shouldn’t interpret this inability (“not able”) as absolute.’

From the archive: Sneering them into the kingdom

‘It is all too tempting to treat those we disagree with as complete imbeciles when, in reality, they are not stupid but operating from a different worldview. A worldview, it should be noted, that might have a high degree of logical consistency. A worldview that isn’t utterly ridiculous but, given the starting assumptions that underpin it, is a perfectly cogent and logical position to take.’