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 …

An open letter: Why this theologian has nothing to say about Christian education

I have four daughters, two of whom went to Christian primary schools and then to a Christian high school, in both country Western Australia and Perth. Our experience of Christian primary schooling in the country was terrific. The school communities were supportive through difficult years for us and many of the teachers became our friends. …

Easter Sunday: We don’t want no resurrection

My favourite resurrection scene is the one in Scorsese’s movie The Last Temptation of Christ, when Jesus calls Lazarus from the grave. I like to think that if this story actually happened, it happened as Scorsese pictures it. First off, Jesus is late. Because Jesus is always late. Like when Notre Dame almost burnt down. …

Good Friday: A face-off with anxiety at the edge of the ocean

Today, I walked alone to the edge of the ocean, to confront my cross. It's Good Friday, after all, it's what you do. But my cross isn't in the church. It's there on the beach, in the shadows of the cliffs, right on the line where the surf comes to the end of itself and …

Mud pies in the slums: The Wait of Glory

C.S. Lewis was wrong, I reckon. In The Weight of Glory he famously says that we satisfy ourselves making mud pies in the slums because we don't know how good it is to build sandcastles at the beach. WRONG. I've built sandcastles at the beach. I know what it's like to sit in the sun …