For a lot of people, Christmas is an ambivalent time. Emotionally complex. It holds a lot of stuff – both good and bad. For some, it is easy to enter into the spirit of it, perhaps reclaiming that childish delight. For others, it is marred by grief or difficult family relationships. As children we might […]
Christian leaders go wrong. We should talk about it. A few unstructured thoughts from a Cafechurch session.
What is the Gospel in our age of anxiety?
What does the resurrection of Jesus mean? What is it to “believe” in the resurrection? Ultimately, does it, or anything, really matter?
Jesus, led by the Spirit, was tempted in the wilderness for forty days. It’s all very well for him – he is, after all, God’s son. But what does it mean for us?
Jesus tells us to love our enemies, do good to those who hurt us, not to judge, to do to other people what we would have them do to us. Is that possible? Is it even desirable?
After a long night of unsuccessful fishing, Simon sits on the shore and reflects on his weird week. Little does he know that what he is about to see will change him forever.
Imagine yourself a tourist in New York City on the 8th of November, 2001. You’ve gotten up early in the morning to take in the sights, and you find yourself gazing up at the enormous glass and steel man made mountains that were the World Trade Centre….. If even something as permanent seeming and invulnerable as the Twin Towers can come down, glinting in the sun one moment and a nightmare of ash and collapsed building materials the next – then what can you trust? What can you have confidence in?
What does the festival of All Saints have to do with understanding the Book of Revelation? Surely in this world come of age the time has come to turn our backs on such highly coloured images from our ancient past?
Or has it?
There was once a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job. That man was blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil. Job 1:1 So begins the book of Job. It’s a kind of fairy story really. Job is an archetype of the good man. He has no […]
Alister Pate