Discovering the goodness of God at the Cross

At the end of sung worship last week we sang “Ten Thousand Reasons” and then there was opportunity for people to give testimony of God’s blessing even through COVID. It was a moving time and Rich sensitively closed it out with the refrain of another song “Cause all my life You have been faithfulAnd all… Continue reading Discovering the goodness of God at the Cross

Social Care – a proposal

On Monday I wrote about the proposals to provide for social care by increasing the National Insurance rate.  I thought I’d sketch out a proposal of my own here to contribute to the debate. My proposal is as follows. First, scrap the current National Insurance system which in reality acts as another form of compulsory… Continue reading Social Care – a proposal

Male and female leadership questions (4) Pulling things together theologically

We are now in a position to see how the boundaries function together in order to create theological principles which should shape church practice. We’ve seen that there are both permissions and restrictions for women in Paul’s letters in terms of leadership and teaching. We’ve also seen that these relate to Creation and The Fall… Continue reading Male and female leadership questions (4) Pulling things together theologically

COVID church risk assessments data update

Here are the latest charts Case numbers are continuing to rise at the moment Although comparing this week with last week is made a little challenging due to the distortion to reporting caused by the Bank holiday weekend. Notice the spike in case growth caused by the Monday and Tuesday comparisons. It is also worth… Continue reading COVID church risk assessments data update

Vaccinating children – a middle road between the scare stories

There’s a strong possibility that the Government, on the advice of the Chief Medical Officers will decide to offer the COVID-19 vaccine to 12-15 year olds. Given that the JCVI have advised not to offer the vaccine on the basis of individual health benefit v risk calculations, this means that if you are a parent,… Continue reading Vaccinating children – a middle road between the scare stories

Male and female leadership questions (3) Boundary texts

In this section, I want to have a look at some of the key and at times controversial Bible texts and give a bit more exegetical detail on how we are to understand them. 1Timothy 2:12 “I do not let women teach men or have authority over them.” This forms part of Paul’s instructions to… Continue reading Male and female leadership questions (3) Boundary texts

Some thoughts on social care and the elderly

It was the issue considered by many to have robbed Theresa May of a majority back in 2017 and it may well rob Boris Johnson of his when the next General Election comes (although he is presumably calculating that a short term loss of popularity won’t be sustained). The vexing question is concerning what to… Continue reading Some thoughts on social care and the elderly

Male and female leadership questions (2) A framework for discussion

David Peterson, former principal at Oak Hill and NT scholar, suggested that it is helpful to set out a framework that provides the boundary for discussion.  This provides for charitable disagreement and variation in practices within those parameters.  So for example, we could draw the lines as follows Therefore, the models start by looking at… Continue reading Male and female leadership questions (2) A framework for discussion

Knowing God … knowing Jesus

This is a kind of footnote to my article that looked at what we can say about The Trinity and what we can learn from the Trinity. In response to that article, Daniel Blanche made these provocative remarks. Was his comment fair? Well, yes, I think there is a fair challenge to be answered here. … Continue reading Knowing God … knowing Jesus

Male and female leadership and teaching roles (1) Introduction

I’ve been serialising some of my work on the Biblical view of men and women (The complementarianism v egalitarianism debate). Here I begin to look at the implications for church leadership. These following articles are based on a discussion paper which was used in a specific church context. I’ve attempted to make it more generally… Continue reading Male and female leadership and teaching roles (1) Introduction