This article also appears in the April online edition of Evangelicals Now One of the concerns many of us have raised over the years is that legalised euthanasia (or assisted dying as it is now commonly described) would lead to increased pressure on vulnerable people to end their lives. We were laughed at for this… Continue reading Responding to Matthew Parris on taboos and assisted dying
Author: faithrootsdw
Faithroots Feedback survey Spring 2024
I appreciate getting regular feedback from readers to gauge how Faithroots is going. If you have a few minutes, I’d appreciate it if you could fill in this survey
Church in a box
One of the key aims of Faithroot.com is to encourage and support church planting. I believe that a lot more of our church planting should be what we might refer to as pioneering. Rather than seeing a large church hive off 40 or 50 people with a staff team and budget, I believe we should… Continue reading Church in a box
Lessons from libraries
In Birmingham, 25 out of 35 public libraries are threatened with closure. I was thinking about this recently whilst reading this article by Steve Kneale on what Christians can learn from the death of the High Street. Steve mentions the challenge that libraries face too. I think there are some even more specific lessons to… Continue reading Lessons from libraries
Who is God? – a pastor’s theology
Over the past few months we’ve been looking at the Doctrine of God, discovering who He is in terms of The Trinity, His character, His names and his deeds. The articles have been serialising this E-Book which is available to download free of charge. The original aims of Faithroots were two-fold. First, I wanted to help… Continue reading Who is God? – a pastor’s theology
Prodigals, Adam, Death and Resurrection (An Easter reflection)
It’s Easter Sunday and I find myself drawn back to three key things in Luke’s Gospel. First, we have the Resurrection Sunday afternoon walk on the Emmaus Road. Jesus works his way through Scripture to show that the whole account was pointing towards him and his death and resurrection. Then back in Luke 3:21-38, we… Continue reading Prodigals, Adam, Death and Resurrection (An Easter reflection)
Jesus lover of my soul: In defence of love songs to Jesus
Every so often, someone kicks off a debate about the superiority of traditional hymns against inferior contemporary worship songs, or vice versa. Usually one of the big claims is that old hymns are full of doctrinal truth whilst modern worship focuses on sentimental love lyrics with the derogatory label “Jesus is my boyfriend songs”. I… Continue reading Jesus lover of my soul: In defence of love songs to Jesus
What atonement means
There has been a tendency in recent years to talk about “models of atonement”. The tendency came to the forefront during the 2003 controversy over Penal Substitution. Evangelical Christians have historically tended to talk about Jesus’ death as paying the penalty for our sin. Steve Chalke and Alan Mann in their book “The Lost Message… Continue reading What atonement means
Deconstruction
Deconstruction or deconstructing is a word that is being increasingly used to describe a particular phenomenon linked especially with US Evangelical Christianity. The idea is that as someone loses confidence in their inherited evangelical faith, they start to deconstruct. The challenge the assumptions and tenants of their faith which levels the ground and enables then… Continue reading Deconstruction
The church is not undermining the Asylum System – The Home Office are managing to do that all by themselves
This is one of those articles where perhaps the headline says it all. However, for background, newspapers are reporting that the church are undermining the asylum system. The criticism comes in the light of the Clapham attacker’s case. In his case, Abdul Ezedi professed faith and was baptised whilst seeking asylum. Newspapers report that he… Continue reading The church is not undermining the Asylum System – The Home Office are managing to do that all by themselves
Faithroots 