What if Jesus were a girl?
A conservative evangelical facebook friend shared an image with a “LOL!” about three wise women arriving at the Bethlehem scene – asking directions, arriving on time, helping deliver the baby, bringing sensible gifts, cleaning the stable, making a casserole,… and there would be peace on earth! I began to wonder how my friend would react
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I Like Jesus
“I like Jesus – but I don’t go to church.” OK. Anyone who has been paying attention would be concerned. I’ve seen Christian communities I care about, approximately halve in numbers of people participating in the last fifteen years or so (a period in which the country’s population grew by 20%). The NZ Census figures
The Bible our Photo Album
The Bible is the Church’s Photo Album. A family’s photo album collects precious memories of the family. The photos have been arranged in a particular way. The family gathers around the album to re-tell its stories. The album maintains the family’s sense of identity. They cannot go back to the time of those stories and
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The End is Nigh
I have a mathematics degree, and I’m not afraid to use it. Full disclosure: past performance is no guarantee of future results. The 2013 Census data on religious affiliation released by Statistics New Zealand on December 10 graphically looks like this: Professor Peter Lineham says: Anglican affiliation has declined 17 percent – from 554,925 to
Abandon the lectionary?
A wise, catholic-minded priest strongly castigated those who did not seriously try using what the church provides and just, in individualistic (and congregational) pique, create their own material. We could talk about the abuse particularly of the rights of the laity by clergy who abandon what they agree and sign up to use. But this
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Put the Mass back into Christmas
The “Put Christ into Christmas”, “Keep Christ in Christmas” banners, stickers, buttons are wrong. You cannot keep Christ out of Christmas. Christ is there in the hustle and bustle. Christ is there amongst the ring of the cash registers, the terrible piped music, the stress, the good-wishes, the sending of cards, family tensions, and exchange of presents.
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