We all lived in bubbles long before COVID-19 came along

The truth is, we’re going to come through this four-week period of social isolation with flying colours, because, let’s face it, most of us live in states of social isolation in the course of our daily lives anyway. Seriously, what will we miss over the next month? Spending time in cafes? Hanging out in pubs? …

Where is God in all this anyway?

Yes, I’ve heard the question asked repeatedly over recent days and it’s one that I want to have a crack at answering. I’m aware that I can’t do that as anything other than what I am—a fairly simple man who grew up in a very conservative evangelical church in the north of England, but whose …

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)

Beyond Love: The dying man

They were together in silence like an old married couple wary of life, beyond the pitfalls of passion, beyond the brutal mockery of hope and the phantoms of illusion: beyond love. For they had lived together long enough to know that love was always love, anytime and anyplace, but it was more solid the closer …

Crave: Where everybody knows your name

I was conducting an interview recently with a couple of guys I think the world of. But it wasn't going so well. In fact, it was going horribly. Ten minutes into the conversation, they started to argue. Not with me but with each other. I realised later, listening back to the tape, that I had …

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 …

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. …

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 …

Love to know: A parable

So I'm sitting in this cafe and the coffee arrives and it's kinda how I like it, but not really, just slightly wrong, but that's okay because it tastes good and I'm not gonna be here for very long anyway so I can always get a better one somewhere else. The morning's barely an hour …