Sacred Treasure A friend who pastors in Hong Kong tackles the church's divisions in the face of political turmoil and social unrest. We would do well to listen, here in Brexit Britain...The Simple Pastor draws on some fascinating Pew Foundation…
Sacred Treasure The Josh Harris 'deconversion' story (for those who are aware) is very sad and my heart goes out to him and his family. Too many have leapt in as pundits. These are the better responses I've readOn Caution…
Despite the relative freedom that singleness brought him, John Stott would never have achieved everything he achieved in his 90-year life were it not for one person: Frances Whitehead. Her legacy is truly unique: She was John's secretary for nearly…
Sacred Treasure This is great - a constantly updated list - Biblical references in U2 lyrics!Tom Holland is on cracking form here - Thank God For Western ValuesIan Paul outlines the issues well for the perennial questions at this time…
In a couple of months, I'll be leading a study day here in Maidenhead on postmodernism and stuff, revamping and updating old material that led to writing A Wilderness of Mirrors. It's been a while since I worked on it,…
There is an emotional complexity to this wonderful painting by Swiss artist Eugène Burnand. I know very little about him, apart from the usual resort of Wikipedia. But he manages to capture a moment of almost frantic inquisitiveness, as Peter and his young, fellow-disciple John rush in the golden sunrise light to the burial garden. Their faces seem filled with anxiety, confusion, hope, wonder, and longing all at once. Hoping against hope, but fearing a con, or something worse? Could Mary Magdalene, first to visit the tomb, possibly have been right...?
Submit! He punched her with red hot angry words, their force spitting in her face. Submit! You promised you would – so why don’t you?Submit! Why didn’t I marry a good, Christian wife? Good Christian wife…? He had sought her…
None of Sofia's pieces has been easy to read -- but this is particularly heartbreaking because it faces the discovery that some of her prolonged agonies had been known by someone close to her... So much silence. It tore at…
Here is part 2 of Sofia's story. If you've not read part 1, I suggest you start there. It is harrowing. But important. It is a testimony of experiences. This stuff happens. In our churches. Let us have ears to…
(more…)This is, I hope, the first of several posts from Sofia. Our friendship goes back a couple of decades and we’ve kept in touch for much of the time. We were invited to her wedding, although we’d been out of the country for several years and so had never met her husband. But we were excited for her.
We had no idea, of course, not least because we lived 100s of miles apart, what was happening and so never saw them interact. It wasn’t until many years later that she was able to start talking more openly about what she was going through. But I’ll let her take over from here, not least because she writes so powerfully.
Sofia’s story will speak for itself.