Articles, thoughts, essays, and content from Brian as well as students – our budding theologians.
Miracles, maths and mystery…
I can still remember the sneer from one of the panelists at an evangelistic atheist site. Desperate to convert others to her newly found atheism she declared: ‘Christians are really, really bad at maths. When doctors say your cancer is incurable, what they mean is that there is only a 1 in a 1000 chance that it won’t prove terminal. When it doesn’t, religious nutters happily proclaim, “a miracle”. No it’s not. It is the 1 in a 1000 cases which comes around, on average, once every thousand cases. Low odds...
read moreSugar, fat and all that…
I publish a monthly article in Perth’s Advocate newspaper, and as most readers of this blog don’t see it, I thought I would reproduce it here. September’s title was ‘Sugar, fat and all that.’ It comes as a bonus blog. The current ‘Why believe?’ series continues on Tuesday with a post ‘Miracles, maths and mystery.’ Sugar, Fat and all that… Due to a recent flight’s disappointing movie choice, I was reduced to watching Damon Gameau’s That Sugar Film which pontificates on the...
read moreEaster Cancelled. They’ve found the body…
Graffiti was an art form during my university days. It adorned three of the walls of every toilet cubicle. One wall was devoted to political comment, another to the smutty, the third to the witty and clever. By and large contributors conformed to this unwritten guideline, and a few days before a now long past Easter the headline ‘Easter has been cancelled. They’ve found the body!’ appeared on the third wall. It has stuck with me through the years. In its own way, it is deeply insightful. Produce the body of Jesus, and whilst...
read moreA world minus Jesus…
Ever imagined a world minus Jesus? There would be some obvious differences. The date for example. I’m writing in 2015 – 2015 since what? And though we might not have got the year of Jesus’ birth completely right, there is no doubt that our calendar has been structured to convey the conviction that the date of his arrival marked the turning point of all history. That’s to be more than a little famous. So what earned Jesus such accolades. The most striking is the claim that he conquered death and that his resurrection...
read moreAbout the blog…
I’m recently back from preaching at a special Fathers’ Day service at Katanning. For those not familiar with Western Australia, it is a three hour drive south of Perth – and what a stunning drive it was today. The countryside was ablaze with colour. This is one of the best times of the year in WA. The blog has now been operational for two weeks, and lest you are interested, I thought I would give you a quick update on where it is at. So far 549 people have visited the site from 39 countries viewing pages 1205 times viewers...
read moreThe Church: Hazard or Witness
Hear the word ‘church’ and are you more inclined to think, ‘Now that’s why I can’t believe’ or ‘yup, it sure is another of those niggling little signs that belief in God is warranted’? Given the bad press the church has experienced in recent decades, I imagine that many will select the first option. Some would boldly say that the church is hazardous and exposure to it is likely to leave you less inclined to believe in the existence of a good God. But I’d like to suggest that such thinking...
read moreThe Bible: Bloodthirsty Text or Solid Witness?
In this ‘Why Believe?’ series we’ve been engaged in a little exercise of cumulative case apologetics – not trying to demonstrate that everything that Christianity stands for is proved with one knockout blow, but cumulatively building a case for belief, one piece at a time. The role of the Bible in building or detracting from this case is important. While arguments for theism establish that belief in a god or gods is reasonable, at some point we have to give content to the character and nature of the god believed in....
read moreTheism, and all that…
When we ask the ‘why believe’ question we pretty soon come to the ‘but can I believe that God exists?’ question. To answer it, we have to explore whether theism is reasonable. Theism claims that there is a God who is the creator and ruler of the universe. It does not go much further than that. This God could be the one worshiped in Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism (for theism does not insist that there can only be one God) and potentially a host of other faiths as well. A great deal of content is not attached to...
read moreWhy believe? A sort of apologetics 101…
Why believe? Well, you already do. The question is really, what do you believe, and why? The first big question is the God one. Does God exist, and if so does it matter? Regardless of whether your answer is ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to the first part of the question, some faith is involved. Perhaps it is better to ask which takes the greater faith, to believe that God exists or does not exist. In the absence of definitive proof for either side, some faith is involved. At the cognitive level, it is about assessing the evidence...
read moreStarting Tuesday
Thanks to those of you who have kept coming back to this site,hoping to find something a little more substantial on it. The good news is that from this Tuesday, 25 August, 2015 your visits will be rewarded. My aim is to post every Tuesday and Friday – with some bonus additions from time to time. The first series will be on ‘Why Believe’ – a little exercise in apologetics for the non specialist. Other frequent themes will be current issues, leadership, how to read the Bible, spiritual formation, church and...
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