The scribes and Pharisees were opposed to Jesus and His teaching. Jesus accused them of hypocrisy: 'Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because you close the kingdom of heaven against mankind: for you neither go in yourselves, neither do you allow those entering to have entered’ Mat 23:13. He also exposed the inadequacy of …
Category: Personal religion
How far does shame go?
Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury, said that he has "learned to be ashamed again of the Church (of England)" after three weeks of studying the accounts of sexual abuse by Church of England clerics. How does this compare with Roman Catholic cardinal Joseph Ratzinger who regularly studied the accounts of abuse by Roman Catholic priests …
Secular puritanism
Secular puritanism is on the rise and it is more aggressive than Christian puritanism. In the wake of recent sex scandals, secular commentators are expressing their concern at the suspension of due process in the law. ‘The new puritanism’ was discussed in the 15th-anniversary edition of the BBC’s This Week programme. The new puritanism is …
The Seven C’s of Christian action
A Happy New Year to one and all! Let us begin 2018 by considering the 7 C's of Christian action. It will be good to incorporate them into New Year Resolutions. There have been many books written on Christian doctrine, many biographies of Christians which motivate to Christian action, but not as much about the …
Lies still matter and always will
It seems that in our ungodly society some lies are more tolerable than others. The resignation of Damian Green is a case in point. Damian Green resigned as First Secretary of State after he was found to have made "inaccurate and misleading" statements about his knowledge that pornography was found on his House of Commons office …
10 years of Street Pastors in Scotland
The tenth anniversary of Street Pastors in Scotland was celebrated by a debate and reception in the Scottish Parliament on 19/12/2017. The debate was secured by Murdo Fraser, MSP, and can be viewed here. Inverness was the first place in Scotland to invite the Street Pastors initiative and pioneered its introduction to the Highlands ten …
A merry heart is a good medicine
Not many people know that this is a quotation from the Bible. ‘A merry heart does good like a medicine’ Pro 17:22. Some Christians are too morose for their own good and for the good of Christianity. Some people think that serious Christians should be morose; rather morose Christians need to learn their Christian behaviour …
Homosexual Christians – an oxymoron?
There are real oxymorons – Unitarian Christians and Arian Christians – and there are what ought to be oxymorons but are only too real – flawed Christians and sinful Christians. Is it any surprise? Biblical students and students of human nature should not be surprised. So why is it a great surprise that there are …
Every idle word that men shall speak…
The language battle is heating up. Redefining marriage is the most spectacular and far-reaching milestone on the secular journey to destroy Christian values in western society, but the language battle began a long time ago with tolerating swearing and blasphemy. Christian terms such as Jesus, Christ, God, Lord, heavens above, hell and damn are all …
Peer group pressure is changing you
Cambridge Analytica, a company which specialises in behaviour change, is credited, along with Facebook, with Donald Trump’s victory in the US Presidential election victory on 8/11/2016. The homepage of Cambridge Analytica's website says “Data drives all that we do. Cambridge Analytica uses data to change audience behavior [sic].’ This is an acknowledgement that peer group …
