Watching the party through the window

This is the first post of my new newsletter on Substack. Please check it out here. For a long time, the story I’ve told most often to define who I am — or who I think I am — is the account of a cliff collapse in the southwest of Western Australia, back when I was a newspaper editor …

“He is risen”? I’m not convinced

I just wasn't into the whole "He is risen" thing this Easter.Don't get me wrong, I still believe. At least I think I do. Maybe I don't—not in the way I'm supposed to, anyway. I saw friends posting the typical messages on Facebook on Easter Sunday and I just didn't feel it. I don't blame …

COVID-19: Should we be fearful of the coming dystopia?

My daughter (the second of four) asked me today whether I was afraid—of the coronavirus and the devastating implications of the current pandemic. My answer was no. I don't feel afraid—but it was only later that I was able to think about why not. Here are some of my reasons. I remember the GFC in …

Truth in a post-apocalyptic world (1/5)

Some (slightly revised) thinking from old lecture notes on epistemology in the post-9/11 world, as we approach the end of another decade. (1/5)

I wanna know what love is: Narcissism and the crisis of our age

For the past few weeks I’ve had this image in my head, of a guy standing on the middle of a bridge, rooted to the spot but looking forward, as if contemplating his next move but being quite unable to make it. The image came out of nowhere, unbidden, but hung around, and I wondered …

Faith, hope and meh: A theology of what?

I met with a friend today who said my words re faith, hope and love feel shallow. I tend to over-talk in such moments so didn't really leave space for any clarification. I suppose I believed him. I suppose, also, that I didn't want to hear it, whether I needed to or not. I suppose …

When God took Job’s teeth: Tommy Tiernan tells a Bible story

No one — NO ONE — tells Bible stories like Irish comedian Tommy Tiernan. That he tells Bible stories at all says something. Something about his Catholic upbringing, perhaps, and definitely something about where his faith is now. As he said in a recent interview on Irish television, ‘It feels to me that we're born with an …

Rachel Held Evans: A voice crying in my wilderness

As Barbara Brown Taylor puts it, "in an age of information overload ... the last thing any of us needs is more information about God. We need the practice of incarnation, by which God saves the lives of those whose intellectual assent has turned them dry as dust ... Rachel Held Evans, Searching For SundayFor …

Just Do It: A faith, hope, love reading of Abraham’s call narrative

I was charged by a game studio with taking my ideas of faith, hope and love and demonstrating them as a hermeneutical framework, or a way of reading a biblical text in order to apply it to the here and now. We began, as you do, with the Abraham call narrative. The following was the …