Yesterday the latest abortion statistics for the UK were published, and they make appalling reading. The total number of abortions has increased to 209,519. That is the equivalent of the population of Bolton, Aberdeen or Bournemouth. The true statistic is almost certainly much higher, since it does not include abortions resulting from use of the ‘morning after’... Continue Reading

What we are left with, most often, is a succession of days that blur one into another. There’s not much that’s remarkable. Or is there? Are we just marking time until this pandemic ends? Were the Israelites just marking time until the first generation died off and the next could enter the Promised Land (where... Continue Reading

I am a pastor, and I have dear minority brothers and sisters in our congregation who describe to me experiences with law enforcement very different from my own. How do I square what they describe to me with the stats in the story above? If I go with the stats, how will I be able... Continue Reading

My experiences with racism and homelessness prepared me to write Same Kind of Different as Me, a book about a homeless Southern black man who grew up in slave conditions in the 20th century. When I first undertook that project, I knew little about institutional racism. But studying Jim Crow and the sharecropper era gave me a new... Continue Reading

We believe God changes hearts, and behavior. He gives his Spirit. He works in and through us to progressively conform us to the image of his Son. We expect more of officers in the church, and we should. And as officers in the church, we not only take up the mantle of leadership with sobriety,... Continue Reading

We can be conformed to this world in many ways. Even those who self-consciously reject worldly philosophies can sometimes slip into a more subtle, and therefore less noticeable, kind of conformity. When we do this, we can easily become an oblivious sheep in wolves’ clothing.   Do not be conformed to this world,  but be... Continue Reading

I remember keenly observing the events leading up to the transfer of Hong Kong from British colonial rule to China in the mid-1990s. In 1997 I watched the ceremony where Robin Cook, then foreign secretary in the Labour government, formally handed the colony back to the Chinese authorities. His understated departure in a tiny motor... Continue Reading

As believers, we are called by God to train our minds and hearts to firmly latch onto the biblical teaching that we are passing through this world as pilgrims and strangers. We can never allow ourselves to become comfortable here. We are merely sojourners passing through this world on our way to glory. From the... Continue Reading

It is interesting that when we read the Joseph story we often look for ways in which Joseph casts a long shadow into the New Testament in order to help us in some way or another to see Jesus.  But I wonder if that methodology is misplaced when looking at chapter forty-two.  In fact, I... Continue Reading

It’s not just the misuse of the Gospel to sell the consumerist ‘American dream’. Nor the way that politics and religion have become so intertwined in a state that was designed to prevent that happening. A W Tozer wrote in 1953,”The religion so common in the United States today, which confuses Caesar and makes Christianity... Continue Reading