Identity

What is our identity? What difference does that make to our lives? And how does a change in our understanding of our identity make a difference?

Review of Catching Contentment

How can anyone be “content in any and every situation” (as Paul writes in Philippians)? Particularly if you’re in the middle of a difficult situation? This is what Liz Carter explores in Catching Contentment.

Juvenal and the Lord’s Supper

In 1 Corinthians, Paul writes about the divisions between rich and poor, including meals they were supposed to be sharing. These are brought vividly to life by the Roman satirist Juvenal.

Freedom

What does freedom look like? What are we saved from and what are we saved for? And what difference does that make to our lives and our attitudes?

A learning God?

Does God learn? How does that fit in with our theology? What would it mean if he does? What does it mean if he doesn’t?

Distorted by sin

How do we see ourselves? Do we think that we are better than other people? Worse than them? Do we recognise our weaknesses and our strengths? Do we excuse our sins, or are we too harsh on ourselves? What about a more realistic reflection on what we are like?

Ecclesiastes

What is the message of the book of Ecclesiastes? How should we understand it? It’s perhaps one of those books that we don’t spend much time reading or thinking about. However, it’s one of my favourites, so this is my sermon about it!

The Syro-Phoenician woman

A woman from Syria needs help. How do those capable of giving that help respond? Do they feel her pain, or dismiss her because she is ‘different’ in some way? This was what happened 2,000 years ago, and what is happening today…

How to speak about God?

How do you speak about God? What does that mean? What does it look like? How can we and how can we fail to speak about God?

The Ice Age Mind: Indonesia update

40,000 years ago people were thinking, believing and feeling like us in Europe. But what about elsewhere? New evidence has been found in Indonesia, which challenges some of what we thought we knew.

World without God?

The cover article of this week’s edition of the New Scientist explores what they think a ‘World Without God’ would look like. It won’t surprise you that I think there’s a few flaws in the article… (as well as some more interesting points!)

Women speaking

When should women be allowed to speak? In what circumstances is it acceptable? It’s an issue with which men have wrestled for a long while…

Faith and evolution

Creation and evolution. Why do we have to choose? I think that, with integrity, we don’t have to; it’s perfectly possible to accept both. This is my sermon on Faith and Evolution as part of our sermon series on Questions of Faith.

The God Hypothesis?

‘The God Hypothesis‘ by Victor Stenger argues that “the existence, or not, of God is very much a question science can address”. It is one of the articles in The New Scientist’s ‘God Issue‘ (subscription required), which I’ve already blogged about. Unfortunately, I don’t think that he does a very convincing job…

Darwin and God’s Image

Being ‘made in the image of God‘ is a fundamental theological concept, which can help us think about the theory of evolution in a more constructive way than is always the case. This sermon was preached in 2009 as part of a baptism service for both a baby (Ella) and two adults (Emily and Sophie;…