“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 …

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 …

Tears for my sister of mercy

I'm not a teary man, not really. But I've wept more in the past few weeks than I have in my whole life. And it's all because of Darlene. My friend. Who's dying. I think it's that I've been caught out. I've faced tragedy before. Lots of it, actually. I've experienced the death of people …

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 …

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. …

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 …

Losing my religion: Why I am NOT a Christian writer

The first time I was told I wasn't a Christian because of something I'd written was after the publication of my first book, This Little Piggy Stayed Home: Barlow, Chambers and the Mafia. As the title suggests, it was about the Mafia, which I'd been investigating for my employer, The West Australian Newspaper, for more …