Category: ethics

The cost of living crisis and the church

There was an old curse to the effect of “may you live in interesting times.” Well, we’ve certainly been living through interesting times! This is perhaps a shock to the system for millennials.  We lived through a period of unparalleled peace, security and prosperity from the 1990ss. Yes, there were terror events including 911 and… Continue reading The cost of living crisis and the church

Biblical womanhood, medieval Christianity and a question about child abandonment

Beth Allision Barr’s “The Making of Biblical Womanhood” became one of the biggest sellers of 2021. You can read my original review here. It also became one of the most controversial books.  Barr’s argument is that complementarian understandings of womanhood are a recent/novel imposition, a result of reformed and evangelical desires to promote a patriarchal… Continue reading Biblical womanhood, medieval Christianity and a question about child abandonment

The pandemic elephant in the room. What happened to our reformed theology?

This is a little bit of a lament.  I come from the Reformed tradition theologically.  We pride ourselves in this tradition on deep theological reflection. This theological reflection is meant to be rooted in detailed exegesis of the text set within two important theological disciplines, Biblical Theology which enables us to see how God’s redemptive… Continue reading The pandemic elephant in the room. What happened to our reformed theology?

Sue Gray’s Report, Party Gate and church culture

We now have the Sue Gray report (or at least a heavily redacted version) available to read giving us a little bit more of an insight into Downing Street life and culture during the pandemic. One question that has come up as we’ve awaited Gray’s findings has been about the rights and wrongs of the… Continue reading Sue Gray’s Report, Party Gate and church culture

Don’t over infer

This week despite natural disasters and rumours of war in other parts of the world, the UK news has continued to be dominated by the Downing Street parties with Sue Gray providing a much truncated version of her report whilst we await the police investigation.  A few people have tried to excuse or justify the… Continue reading Don’t over infer

Discriminating home sellers

You may have picked up on the story of the home-owners who refused to sell their house to a same-sex couple. The story is I guess of personal interest to me because we are in the process of attempting to move home. Fascinatingly, something has come up repeatedly in conversations with estate agents, both when… Continue reading Discriminating home sellers

Representative justice and mercy

The reaction to the Downing Street parties scandal has been fascinating.  I wrote a little bit about his here the other day but I wanted to pick up  a bit further on one particular response.  It’s best represented by this tweet from Owen Jones. Obviously, Jones is driven in part by an assumption that punishment… Continue reading Representative justice and mercy

Statues, parties and rule breaking

There have been two big cases in the last few weeks which have got people talking about what it means to be a rule breaker and what lawlessness looks like. First, there’s the Colston case where the protestors who tipped the statue of a Bristol slaver trader into the sea were brought to trial only… Continue reading Statues, parties and rule breaking

Have COVID interventions worked -more on difficult decisions in uncertainty

Were the Government reckless in failing to bring in additional COVID measures for England over the Christmas and the New Year period? Or did Scotland and Wales jump the gun with pointless measures that haven’t worked, were never going to and weren’t necessary anyway? A lot of people think so and hold their views very… Continue reading Have COVID interventions worked -more on difficult decisions in uncertainty