One of the most common and significant charges leveled against the traditional Christian understanding of sexuality and marriage is that it is deeply damaging to individuals. Denying someone’s sexuality is seen as denying who that person really is—telling them to repress something central to their identity and to their ability to flourish. Christians, it is increasingly claimed, are to blame for gay teenagers growing up guilt-ridden and even suicidal.... continue reading
As concerns with mental health continue to grow, it can be useful to understand mental health better. However understanding, in and of itself, is not enough. We still need to wrestle with the question: what, as a church, can we do to help those who are suffering? Or maybe, even, what should we do to help those in our congregations who are finding life hard? Before exploring ways to help, there are two important things to note:... continue reading
Struggles with mental health are on the rise. Anxiety, depression and many other diagnoses besides are becoming increasingly common in our congregations and communities. All of us will know someone who is finding life desperately hard. Many of us reading right now will know the awfulness of a persistent low mood or a relentless fear that taints every day. ... continue reading
As Christians, it can be tempting to self-isolate in our mental-health struggles. We sometimes feel that we should have it all together so we can better serve our church family. But while it is important to cling to our joy in the Lord, it’s equally important to recognize and seek help in our struggles as we do so. ... continue reading
Most of the times I have read Habakkuk, I have moved quickly past verse 5 to the rest of the book. But verse 5 actually contains wisdom for us about how to live through moments of God’s silence. It is, after all, the exhortation that God himself gives to a man who has been living with that experience for some time.... continue reading
Helen was born in Hertfordshire, England to Sir Martin and Lady Edith Roseveare. She was the second of five children. Her father was a mathematician who designed the ration books used in the UK during the Second World War.... continue reading
Most of us have heard about David and Goliath, but there is a whole lot more to David’s story than that! As well as bows and arrows and slingstones and giants, did you know that the Bible’s account of the story of David and Saul also includes big battles, midnight escapes, caves, deserts, danger, decisions, madness, honey and cows?... continue reading
The following is an extract from Chapter 13 of The Songs of a Warrior, an imaginative yet biblically faithful account of the first two kings of Israel by Katy Morgan. This extract retells the story of Samuel’s visit to David told in 1 Samuel 16 v 1-13 and the story of how David started off in Saul’s service documented in 1 Samuel 16 v 14-23. ... continue reading
Having Easter as part of the cultural landscape can be seen as both a blessing and a curse. It’s a blessing that we have public recognition that it is Good Friday and Easter Sunday—the most significant moments in the Christian calendar. (Christmas comes a close third.) ... continue reading
The extraordinary spread of Christianity, both numerically and geographically, doesn’t prove that Jesus really rose again. But how a man born into a subjugated ethnic group in an obscure Roman province—who lived poor, died young, who never wrote a book, raised an army, or sat on a throne—has come to be the most impactful human in all human history does require some kind of explanation.... continue reading
