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February 2014

Darwin Fish

Evolution – The Elephant in the Empty Nave

Recently I was at a show where “Christian” was synonymous with “someone-who-believes-the-universe-is-thousands-not-billions-of-years-old”. At a dinner party, when someone found out I am a Christian, I was identified with the Flat Earth Society, and it was assumed I was anti-evolution, and anti-science. Somehow the well-financed, American-style, fundamentalist, creationist approach to the Bible and to science and

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Bishop Jim White

Habemus Blogem

I regularly rant and rave about the church and its leadership not moving into the new world of the third millennium – web 2.0. So it is only fitting that I celebrate another of our bishops picking up the discipline of blogging. Bishop Jim White, Assistant Bishop of Auckland, is a friend of mine; I

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preaching

Beware of the Dogma

He preached about the Trinity and how the world began; Explained the Incarnation and the Destiny of Man. He carefully expounded every detail of the Creeds, And tried to show their relevance to modern human needs; He brilliantly upheld the Christian heritage of Truth, And sought to make it lucid and acceptable to youth. They

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Open Bible

“Sola Scriptura” Meaningless

Those who believe in sola scriptura (“Scripture alone”) cannot agree amongst themselves what this concept actually means. For some the Bible does not just point to God’s revelation, or tell the story of God’s revelation – the Bible is God’s revelation. “Tradition” for these people is nothing more than the history of interpreting the Bible.

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reader

Training Readers

There was a comment here recently that really caught me up short: Can you imagine the cries of “clericalism!” that would ensue if we said you needed to be trained to be a reader? It had never entered my mind not to provide training and help for the immensely significant ministry of reading. And never

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Jesus' Baptism

Baptism Expels Us

I always appreciate people who present a familiar image in a creatively different way – turning our usual ways of viewing things inside-out, upside-down. In the recent so-called Week of Prayer for Christian Unity (I say “so-called”, because we Christians are not even united enough to agree on the same week to pray for unity!)

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the stroom effect

By Heart

In a recent conversation here it was pointed out that if you place the text in front of someone the majority of us cannot help but read it. That is true whether it is in a book, on a pew sheet, or up on a projected screen. Even if people know the text by heart,

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