I want to argue that there are some important parallels between the scepticism that Augustine encountered and some contemporary ways of handling the Bible. I also want to argue that Augustine has given us something of enduring value in meeting those approaches by his analysis…
We often associate atheism with a very high, indeed arrogant, view of what a human being is. Thus, sometimes God is denied because his existence would threaten the overwhelmingly important value of human freedom. So argues nineteenth-century Russian anarchist Mikhail Bakunin. Sometimes God is denied…
One of the perils of being a middle-aged parent in England is that you have to attend school plays. By the time your children are in their mid-late teens, they no longer act in dubious juvenile versions of The Lion King, but any sense of…
Does someone have the right to harm their own soul? Or if you don’t much like the talk of ‘soul’, does someone have the right to do themselves moral harm? For many years the assumption in the UK has been that the individual does have…
People rightly note the way Christians in English-speaking Western culture have moved in a generation from being ‘moral majority’ to ‘immoral minority’. But I wonder whether that really catches the intensity of the dislike and disdain that I see in the two Western societies with…
As I write this the UK Parliament is considering Clause 1(1) of the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill. It reads 'Marriage of same sex couples is lawful'. Aside from all considerations about how Christians should respond to same-sex attraction and see biblical teaching reflected in…
One of the most unnerving things you can read is John Milton’s great poem Paradise Lost. Don’t mistake me—I do not dislike the work, far from it. I love it and deeply admire it, but it is profoundly unnerving. Let me explain...
‘The wisest and the best of men—nay, the wisest and best of their actions—may be rendered ridiculous by a person whose first object in life is a joke.’ Thus comments Jane Austen’s character Darcy in Pride and Prejudice to Elizabeth Bennett. Ridicule is a theme…
‘Just right’. This is the key refrain in the Goldilocks story as she tries out the chairs, porridge, and beds of the three bears, whose home she has entered (apparently illegally, but nothing turns on that). ‘Just right’ is also a good summary of a…
