Perpetual Virginity – Making theology unnecessarily complicated

Roman Catholics place a strong emphasis on Mary as worthy of homage and devotion.  They refer to her as The Virgin Mary, believing that she was a perpetual virgin. This goes beyond the idea of a virgin conception or virgin birth to a permanent, celibate life. I want to have a look at this in… Continue reading Perpetual Virginity – Making theology unnecessarily complicated

Are all age services any use?

The All Age Family service is sometimes treated with a bit of suspicion, tolerated at best.  I’ve heard two objections to them. The first is that All Age worship excludes single people and those without children.  The second is that they prevent you engaging deeply with God’s Word.  Now, both of those things can be… Continue reading Are all age services any use?

Getting the ending right?

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Would you leave a church if you disagreed with its position on eschatology, or would you be happy to stay?  Is it okay for a church not even to have an agreed position on eschatology and to allow elders to come to different conclusions? Eschatology is concerned with “the last things” and so doctrinally it’s… Continue reading Getting the ending right?

Starting points for a messy world

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Here’s the first episode of our new podcast series on “How do we know?” As we begin to delve into some Systematic Theology or “doctrine.” One of my aims is to make theological training and teaching more accessible and the podcast is one way of doing this. YouTube Audio

What does your pastor need to know?

Every so often I see comments about what pastors and church leaders need to have studied, to know and be reading now. At one end of the spectrum is the view that “all we need is the Bible” and we don’t need to make it complicated.  At the other end of the spectrum is the… Continue reading What does your pastor need to know?

Theology and the church

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The other day I saw this twitter comment about the place, or more accurately, absence of theology in the local church. There was also this additional commentary from Marcus Honeysett.  I believe that the local church is the context where theology should primarily happen.  There are a few reasons for this but it boils down… Continue reading Theology and the church

Eve, deception and Doctrine

thought it might be helpful to dig a bit further into some of the things raised in my conversation with Elyse Fitzpatrick on last week’s podcast.  If you haven’t watched or listened in yet then I’d encourage you to do so via one of the links below. One thing that Elyse raised was the way… Continue reading Eve, deception and Doctrine

Do we take the Bible seriously enough?

The other day, Eddie Arthur shared a blog article titled “Issues with my tribe.”  He is there referring to evangelicalism and he highlights two particular concerns, namely that despite our protestations, we don’t take the Bible or our doctrine seriously enough. Clues towards those conclusions are found in our Sunday services. In terms of taking… Continue reading Do we take the Bible seriously enough?

How can we know anything about God, us and this world?

The Pendulum of Rationality In our first article, we saw that our whole life, what we think, how we feel, what we do and say is influenced by what we believe.  We choose either to believe truth or lies about God, Creation, Humanity and New Creation.  So how do we know what is true?  Throughout… Continue reading How can we know anything about God, us and this world?