Articles, thoughts, essays, and content from Brian as well as students – our budding theologians.
Quotable – For Christmas
With the Christmas season upon us, I thought I’d look at some Christmas quotes from notable figures. A thousand times in history a baby has become a king, but only once in history did a King become a baby. Anon Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn’t before! What if Christmas, he thought, doesn’t come from a store. What if Christmas…perhaps…means a little bit more! Dr Seuss, How the Grinch Stole Christmas How many observe Christ’s birthday! How few, His precepts. Benjamin Franklin Gifts of time and...
read moreQuotable: Rachel Held Evans, Searching for Sunday – Take 2
Last week we looked at some of the notable quotes with which Rachel Held Evans starts different chapters of her 2015 book Searching for Sunday: Loving, Leaving and Finding the Church. This week we look at some of her own insights from the book, which as the title suggests, explores her journey of loving, leaving and finding the church. The book is well worth the read – at times it is funny, at other times sad, sometimes poignant, and often profound. It is no coincidence that when Satan tempted Jesus after his baptism, he began his...
read moreQuotable: Rachel Held Evans – Searching for Sunday
Rachel Held Evans 2015 book Searching for Sunday: Loving, Leaving and Finding the Church is well worth the read. As the sub title suggests, it is a book about loving, leaving and finding the church – and tells of a journey well worth pondering. Each chapter starts with a quote from a noteworthy figure, or a verse from the Bible. Here are a few of these quotes… I prefer a church which is bruised, hurting and dirty because it has been out in the streets, rather than a church which is unhealthy from being confined and from clinging...
read moreQuotable: C.S.Lewis, Mere Christianity – Take 2
Recently I finished teaching a course in Apologetics at Vose Seminary, and we concluded by looking at the apologetic methodology of C.S.Lewis. As I took another look at his classic work, Mere Christianity, I was again struck by its significance and the importance of Lewis as an apologist. Based on his 1943 wartime broadcasts, Mere Christianity has impacted the lives of many thousands of people. Here is a second look at some insights from this book… To what will you look for help if you will not look to that which is stronger than...
read moreSloth: A Twenty First Century Take on an Ancient Vice
For those familiar with the 7 deadly sins, sloth ranks as one of them – the others being envy, vainglory, avarice, anger, gluttony and lust. I was recently interested to read Rebecca Konyndyk De Young’s take on sloth. Validly pointing out that while we tend to associate sloth with laziness, or lounging on the couch munching away at crisps and binge watching Brooklyn 99 yet again, this is not the historic understanding of sloth. The longer understanding of sloth has been that it is a failure to pay attention to what we are called to do....
read moreQuotable – C.S.Lewis, Mere Christianity
Last week I finished teaching a course in Apologetics at Vose Seminary, and we concluded by looking at the apologetic methodology of C.S.Lewis. As I took another look at his classic work, Mere Christianity, I was again struck by its significance and the importance of Lewis as an apologist. Based on his 1943 wartime broadcasts, Mere Christianity has impacted the lives of many thousands of people. Here are some insights from this book… A proud man is always looking down on things and people; and of course, as long as you are looking down,...
read moreQuotable: Glittering Vices – Rebecca Konyndyk De Young, Take 2
This is a second selection of snippets from Rebecca Konyndyk De Youngs intriguing 2009 book Glittering Vices: A New Look at the Seven Deadly Sins and their remedies. The title explains the book, which after an exploration of some of the historical understandings of the seven deadly sins (and the opposing virtues against which they were stacked), explores each in turn – envy (the bitterness that flows from believing others have it better), vainglory (believing that image rather than reality is all important), sloth (which rather than...
read moreQuotable: Glittering Vices – Rebecca Konyndyk De Young
This week our selection of quotes comes from Rebecca Konyndyk De Youngs intriguing 2009 book Glittering Vices: A New Look at the Seven Deadly Sins and their remedies. The title explains the book, which after an exploration of some of the historical understandings of the seven deadly sins (and the opposing virtues against which they were stacked), explores each in turn – envy (the bitterness that flows from believing others have it better), vainglory (believing that image rather than reality is all important), sloth (which rather than...
read moreQuotable: Greg Sheridan and God is Good for You – Take 2
A few weeks ago we had an initial look at a few gems from Greg Sheridan’s excellent new book God is Good for You. Here is a second look… Materialism, the most boring as well as the least accurate way of experiencing the world and recording experience, is the dominant mindset of the Western intelligentsia in our day. – Quoting A.N.Wilson (p35) Militant atheists deny any validity to the testimony of anyone in history who, through mystical prayer or contemplation or the irruption of God into human consciousness, claims any direct...
read moreQuotable: Brian Harris, The Big Picture – Take 2
Last week we looked at a few of the statements made in the opening chapters of my 2015 book, The Big Picture: Building Blocks of a Christian World View which people sometimes cite back at me. Here are a few more insights from the book which I hope you will enjoy pondering… Election is not about privilege but responsibility. We are blessed to bless. It is a biblical truth with challenging implications, but if we are to build a Christian world view we must repeatedly affirm that every God-given blessing is for the greater good of...
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