‘The Alexandrian public is more delighted with tumult than any other people; and if at any time it should find a pretext, breaks forth into the most intolerable excesses; for it never ceases from its turbulence without bloodshed.’ That’s not a quote from a BBC commentator on the streets of the Egyptian city today but rather the view of an ancient church historian at a time when the Christian church was a real powerhou...

No doubt about it – my favourite song from the 80s is ‘Don’t Leave me this Way’ by the Communards. Released by them in 1986, the song was originally performed by Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes (never heard of ’em) in 1975. This is a choice that probably paints me as some kind of disco dive – which I certainly wasn’t. But its high-tempo beat, the brilliant backing vocals by Sarah Jane Morris, and the daring a...

In my last post on Christian persecution I focussed on the issue of ‘falling away’ which, according to Scripture, is one response we will see in the face of Christians being persecuted for their faith. This is obviously a negative reaction and in warning us about it Jesus was hoping that we would be able to guard against it happening. But it is not th...

Does sexism bear any comparison with racism? Are they both equally bad or is judging a person based on the colour of his or her skin far worse than judging a person based on his or her gender?

I ask in the light of what has happened yesterday to Andy Gray, the Sky TV football pundit: he lost his job because he had made a number of ill-judged comments about women. His comment was that there was no way a woman could understand...

Broken nations form a part of the rich tapestry that is our world and the consequences of that brokenness – in conflict, war, poverty and injustice – are among some of the greatest problems facing our world today. One way of understanding that brokenness is to realise how the empires and colonisers of this world have added to that state – or even caused it – through their destruction of indigenous people’s identity....

It is referred to as the Gangster Council – and if that makes it sound the most unchristian meeting ever held then you would be right and wrong at the same time. Wrong in that it was a formally-called gathering of ‘world’ Christian leaders; right in that the level of violence used in it totally discredited the meeting. Unfortunately, the violence used was but a reflection of the violence generally used within the chur...

Today we go on a journey out of Wales. Not far, but far enough. We’ve a few pieces of furniture to pick up in the Macclesfield area of north-west England – so nothing too exciting!

As I searched for a song on the theme of travelling I came across John Denver’s ‘Country Roads’. My father had some country music tapes when I was young and I can remember this song grabbing me by the heart and causing that peculiar Welsh em...

One of the consequences of persecuting Christians is that some, according to Scripture, will ‘fall away’. Obviously this is not a good response! There are other responses that Jesus does not want to see from us in the face of persecution but I feel that ‘falling away’ probably deserves a post on its own. In my first post on the subject of Christian persecution I noted how Jesus said that those who follow him would f...

An anarchist group in Cardiff was turned away from any acts of protest by being persuaded to spend more time down the pub. What a gem of a story! But it’s true apparently. An undercover policeman (they turn up everywhere these days) infiltrated the group and instead of acting like some agent provocateur and getting them to break the law he dragged them to the pub and got them drinking. He made friends with them; cared for...

How much harm has the European church caused the indigenous peoples of North America? According to the paper I have been sharing with you recently the answer is a great deal. The American Indians (as the paper refers to them) were not without a deep spirituality when the first Christian missionaries arrived among them to preach the Gospel. But in this life at least this Gospel became for them very bad news as their culture ...

Having been invented on the billiard tables of the British Raj in India, snooker has always been a quintessentially British game, its values reflecting the good gentlemanly conduct of the Empire. At one time it used to be my favourite sport – back in the days when the stars of the game were what were rather quaintly called the ‘home nation’ players: people like Ray Reardon, Doug Mountjoy, the young Steve Davis, and De...

Today we’d call it stalking and poor old Sting could be facing a prison sentence, but he probably didn’t know that when he and the Police first recorded ‘Every Breath you Take’ in 1983. It won a couple of awards and is probably Police’s best known song – despite its rather creepy lyrics.

I was still at school in the year of its release and being the shy boy I was the words probably resonated with me – though not in...

The damage caused to the indigenous peoples of north America by the European colonisers who took their lands is substantial. But since it is deep, emotional pain it is not always readily recognised. One area in which national pain is seen on the surface is in the levels of substance misuse, especially the misuse of alcohol. Drinking rates are significantly ...

Christians are not being persecuted in the UK today. Despite all the stirring up of certain stories in some quarters of the church and despite even the launch of a campaign by one group as a defiant stand against the so-called trend to silence Christian witness, the truth is rather more mundane – in the Western world today the church does not find itself in danger and there is very little Christian persecution.

That does...

After what proved to be a rather controversial post yesterday I’m going to play it safe today and write about the film we went to see last night. The King’s Voice tells the story of King George VI’s battle with a speech impediment and the help he got from a self-taught, Australian speech therapist. It is such a brilliant film.

At its heart is redemption – a life blighted by a stammer faces the ultimate c...

Is a literalist interpretation of the Bible creating ‘schizophrenic’ Christians? A provocative question to ask on a Monday morning to be sure, but I ask it following a comment I heard over the weekend. Let me put the comment in its context before I tell you what it was: this person was emphasising the need for believing truth if we are to have a strong, healthy, and intimate relationship with God as Father. I have no disa...

With yet more snow falling this morning (though thankfully not here) I’ve been thinking about the word ‘treacherous’ which has been used often during the bad weather in relation to the condition of the roads and pavements. Someone on Twitter said that roads can’t be treacherous because ‘they weren’t on our side in the first place’. Good point, I think!

Over the holiday we watched a BBC series on DVD called â€...

Music and emotions go together, don’t they? You hear a piece of music you haven’t heard for a long time and deep inside a feeling is aroused. For me, very often it is sadness that is stirred up. One song that manages to do that is ‘Only You’, originally released by Yazoo in 1982.

It’s been covered a few times after that – notably by the Flying Picket...

Do indigenous peoples suffer more physical and emotional health problems than the colonisers who have subjugated them? The answer is a big, fat yes. And to add to the depressing nature of that finding, it is also clear that Christian missionaries have also played their part in the problem. In an academic paper published in 2002 under the less than catchy title ‘Subst...

This will probably surprise you but there’s a lot I know nothing about. Last night I was reminded about one subject area where my understanding and knowledge is as low as it could possible be – astronomy. The BBC is broadcasting live over three nights on the subject giving some very basic information for those of us who ‘know nothing’.

What fascinated me as much as anything, however, was how astronomers seem to have ...