Songs of Lament and Rest

I recently found myself reflecting on these words: My God, my God, why hast thou me forsaken? why so farArt thou from helping me, and from my words that roaring are? All day, my God, to thee I cry, yet am not heard by thee;And in the season of the night I cannot silent be.

The Most Unpleasant Character in all Fiction? God and Genocide

“The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.” So claims Richard Dawkins in his anti-religious rant, The God Delusion (TGD).

God and Design: Grasping the Nettle

I appear to have created a rumpus at Grasping the Nettle (GTN). For those that do not know, GTN is an organisation based in Scotland that sets out to encourage “informed and respectful dialogue on ‘the Science/God issue’”. Its main interest is to explore God’s existence and facilitate events that support that goal. The row

Recent Developments for LGB Christians in the UK

Since I wrote my article Gay and Christian in June 2021, there have been a number of developments in the UK that are pertinent to the discussion. The first is that in September 2021, the Church in Wales, a member of the Anglican Communion but quite distinct from the Church of England (C of E),

Where are we from? How did we get here?

In this essay, I attempt to address questions on what it is to be human. I do so as an interested non-expert and as a Christian believer. It is quite possible I have missed important parts of the story. I wrote it as my own research project. It contains two parts. First, I look at

Forgiveness

In what follows, I want to think about the meaning and practice of forgiveness. While my focus is on Biblical teaching concerning forgiveness, I have tried to draw out some more general lessons about forgiveness we might apply more widely. It was a difficult blog to write because it touches on some very personal issues.

The Three Marys: An Antidote to Sexism

I have said it before and I’ll say it again. Sometimes the claims professing Christians make without even a hint of embarrassment are so jaw dropping in their ignorance, arrogance and sheer unpleasantness that it knocks you for six. Try this one, for example. In a discussion about the role of women in church leadership,

Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics

I am passionate about statistics. I use statistics at work to assess what large volumes of data, say the results of chemical analyses of soil or groundwater, might tell us when we’re making decisions about land that may be contaminated. But statistics can be abused. Sometimes this happens out of ignorance, other times not. In

Mental Illness and the Bible

In a previous blog, I wrote about my own experience of mental illness. I noted that mental illness in general, which includes common conditions such as depression and anxiety as well as rarer ones such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and eating disorders, is remarkably common and that as many as one in four people suffer

Noah and the Anti-Geologists

It takes a profound lack of imagination not to enjoy the story of Noah and the Flood as it is told in the Book of Genesis. Children everywhere love it. Versions of it feature in children’s story books, songs and cartoons and well as in toy arks that contain two of a whole range of