Gospel Reliability - Does It Matter?

It was another of those rather futile discussions . . .

A friend, visiting from America. A scientist, not a Christian, and someone who takes a somewhat skeptical, perhaps even cynical view. He started listing all the reasons why he felt the gospel accounts were inaccurate, and quickly I was drawn into response.

It was going nowhere of course. It’s a vast subject, with many different nuances and facets. People have spend whole lifetimes studying it and only scratched the surface. There are no simple answers. Obviously 20 minutes round the swimming pool was not going to resolve anything . . .     Continue reading >>

Ten Reasons Why I Am Not a Fundamentalist

A Brief Personal Introduction

In 1969 I became a Christian.

Like most new converts, I started out with a vague concept that “the bible is the word of God”, without giving very much thought to just what that might mean.  My conversion had been heavily influenced by a group of Christians in my college who were far more knowledge than myself, and I simply adopted their viewpoint. The bible was “The Book” and was God’s chosen way of communicating with us, and that was it.

In 1971 I joined the extremist “Children of God” sect (there’s more on this in  How to Survive in the Pharisee Church). The Children of God regarded the King James Version from the 16^th century as the only divinely ordained translation . . .   Continue reading >>

An Introduction to Church Bullying. . .

I am a member of an Anglican church, have been for many years.

Why is this? The worship is turgid, the prayers stilted and artificial, and the preaching second rate. There are many other churches in Singapore that have a culture and practice that I’d feel much more at home with. Yet still I persist.

Why? . . .     Continue reading >>

What kind of community?

The other week my pastor gave me a book!

I won’t tell you what it’s called, in case you go out and buy it—it’s not a very good book and I wouldn’t want you to waste your money on it—but it’s all about the church community, and the role of that community in advancing God’s purposes.

For my pastor, however, I think it had another purpose—to send me a message, that “Norman, you need to stop being so individualistic, and start bonding into the community a bit better.”

I’m not knocking Jack Welch! While researching this (checking the spelling of his name actually) I came on a page of Jack Welch quotes. It included this one: Giving people self-confidence is by far the most important thing that I can do. Because then they will act. Now that, I like!

Well, that’s fine. Actually . . .     Continue reading >>