Parkinsons brings a lot of unwelcome firsts.Recently it was the first time I had to ask someone to cut up my meal. There were three of us out for lunch. A beautiful cut of meat lingered on my plate. The steak knife was sharp. But my tremor meant all I could manage was a constant chinking of the knife against the ceramic of the plate. I concentrated every ounce of energy I could summon on making...
Easter Sunday. Why hope is better than optimism.
Does Easter Sunday fill me with hope or optimism? I’ve just finished reading of Miroslav Volf’s A Public Faith, in which he draws upon the distinction between hope and optimism offered by German theologian Jurgen Moltmann. Hope and optimism… both have to do with positive expectation, and yet the two are very different. Optimism has to do with good things in the future that are latent...
The Greatest Easter Sermon Ever
It’s Friday. Jesus is arrested in the garden where He was praying. But Sunday’s coming. It’s Friday. The disciples are hiding and Peter’s denying that he knows the Lord. But Sunday’s coming. It’s Friday. Jesus is standing before the high priest of Israel, silent as a lamb before the slaughter. But Sunday’s coming. It’s Friday. Jesus is beaten, mocked, and spit upon. But Sunday’s coming. It’s...
The Heart of the Gospel
In 1971 the Sydney Anglicans produced a report that revolutionised my understanding of the gospel. Now out of print, Move in for Action, a report of the Commission on Evangelism, contained a chapter by Paul Barnett that examined the preaching of the gospel by Paul and Peter as recorded in the book of Acts. He showed that not once do Paul or Peter focus their “evangelistic” preaching...
I don’t plan on being in ‘heaven’ for long
Along with most Christians, I grew up believing that when I die my soul will leave my body and ascend to an immaterial realm called heaven, where I will spend an eternity with God. The only problem is, neither Jesus nor the Bible teach In recent years biblical scholars have argued that the bible does not see eternal life as us ascending to heaven, but heaven ‘descending’ to earth and...
It’s the Resurrection, Stupid
When I was growing up the death of Jesus Christ on a Roman cross was the defining centre of my understanding of Christianity. Jesus’ death was God’s solution to the estrangement between humankind and God that was caused by our sin. Our wrongdoing demanded punishment of the most severe kind – eternal death. As long as that sin was unpunished it was impossible for anyone to share...