Category: ethics

Is Sunday the Christian sabbath?

The other day I wrote about whether Christians should keep Sunday as their Sabbath day.  There are four primary objections to the suggestion.  We dealt with the first one in the previous article, the argument that Sabbath obligations no longer apply because we are under grace, not law. The other two suggest that whilst Christians… Continue reading Is Sunday the Christian sabbath?

Should Christians keep Sunday as a Sabbath day?

When I was younger, the UK still had very strict rules on things like Sunday trading and sport.  However, the Thatcher government was in the process of seeking to liberalise most rules.  There was a prominent movement seeking to resist the arrival of Sunday trading including organisations such as The Lord’s Day Observance Society (now… Continue reading Should Christians keep Sunday as a Sabbath day?

Relearning our theological triage

One of the challenges that we all faced during COVID was that the intense pressure on health care meant that none urgent surgery and treatment had to be cancelled. There were two reasons for this. First, hospitals were at capacity treating virus patients. Second, we wanted to minimise face to face contact to reduce the… Continue reading Relearning our theological triage

Let’s get the complementarianism/ egalitarianism debate in perspective

I wrote my MTh dissertations on pastoral ethics relating to marriage. My current work is focused on raising up leaders to plant churches in urban contexts. This combined with another factor means that a particular topic comes up from time to time and you will find me writing about it here. The third factor is… Continue reading Let’s get the complementarianism/ egalitarianism debate in perspective

First and second things

At the weekend, the Keswick Convention put out a statement on social media as follows.  It seems that the convention has been subject to a bit of a protest about their stance on women speakers. It’s not the first time that Christians have decided to protest Christian events. In fact, back when we attended Keswick,… Continue reading First and second things

Whose rights? A question of freedom

It looks like the Nigel Farage – Coutts saga is drawing to a close.  It began with Nigel Farage claiming that his account with the bank had been closed because of his political views.  The bank claimed that it was because he dd not meet their financial thresholds but leaked documents showed that in that… Continue reading Whose rights? A question of freedom

Unequally yoked … When the world gets it better than we do

The Farage-Coutts saga continues to intrigue me. The standard attack against Coutts is that they are discriminating against Farage based on his opinions. It is being presented as a denial of his freedom to be anti EU and pro border controls. I’m not sure there is evidence for that. I guess we would have to… Continue reading Unequally yoked … When the world gets it better than we do

What am I paying for if I open a bank account with you?

The Nigel Farage and Coutts saga highlights something significant about our culture.  My friend Steve Kneale also wrote about the saga here and he takes a much stronger line that Coutts were morally wrong to close Farage’s account and were discriminating against him. My position would be that, yes they were discriminating against him but… Continue reading What am I paying for if I open a bank account with you?

Freedom, Nigel Farage and the Coutts dilemma

I don’t know if you’ve been following this particular story or not. I’ve only really just picked up to it so am coming to the party quite late. The story is that Nigel Farage, former leader of UKIP and prominent Brexit campaigner had his account with Coutts banks shut down. The  bank claimed that this… Continue reading Freedom, Nigel Farage and the Coutts dilemma