The Prophetic Critique of Religion
This is the excerpt for your very first post.
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Bees, the Bible, and the Honey of Salvation
Bees and Honey are a theme for salvation which run throughout the Bible. There are over 60 references to them. At times they symbolise the bounty and blessing of God, at other times they are a warning of God’s judgement. Ultimately, they are a reminder of the sweetness of God’s kingdom. Judgemental Wasps The first…
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Relax and Let God be God – Learning to Abide in Christ
I think we sometimes understand our Christian faith as a battle rather than a relationship. Our language and songs often emphasise our ongoing battle against temptation, to overcome sin, and to fight onwards to reach our destination. But sometimes, we emphasise the combative elements of our faith at the expense of the roots of our…
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Alcuin of York – The Man Who Invented The Bible
The Bible as we know it today was not written by the original authors. The words are the same, subject to translation and transmission, but the way we read them is very different. When the Bible was written, it was not collected into one book. The individual books of the Bible did not have chapters…
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Should We Obey The Government? – The Limits of Relationship Between Church and State
A question that Christians have been asking for two thousand years is to what degree a Christian must obey the government. There has not been a consistent answer, and there is still a broad disagreement over the question. But of course, like everything in life, the question itself is not actually as simple as it…
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Render Unto Caesar – Should Christians Pay Tax to Modern Caesars?
What does it mean to ‘render unto Caesar’? Is it more than just whether a Christian should pay their taxes? Aside from the King James language, the phrase has often been taken to mean all kinds of different things which, I suggest, are not in the original meaning. This blog post is trying to get…
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Speaking Truth to False Power: Bishop Budde vs. Trump and the History of Christian Opposition to Corruption
Christianity is always political. It should be separated from political parties, and the church’s leaders should not also be the state’s leaders, nor should the state lead the church. But, at no point is Christianity apolitical. The Church, and it’s representatives, must and should hold political power to account. The sermon given by Bishop Budde…
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What Does The Salvation Army Believe About Holiness?
The Salvation Army’s doctrine of holiness has changed over it’s existence. In this article I will track how that belief has developed. The tenth doctrine of The Salvation Army says: We believe that it is the privilege of all believers to be wholly sanctified, and that their whole spirit and soul and body may be preserved…
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Was Jesus Short? – The Moral Assumptions Of Height
In Luke 19, we find the story of Jesus and Zacchaeus, the tax collector. This is one of those stories that many of us learned as children. Zacchaeus is a short man who wants to see Jesus, and so climbs a tree. Jesus sees him, calls to him, has dinner with the little reprobate, and…
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Why Jehovah Isn’t God’s Name
The main problem is that Jehovah isn’t actually in the Bible. It is a mistake of translation that ended up being used in songs, translations of the Bible, and common parlance. Let’s see how it happened. How Was the Old Testament Written? To start with, we need to understand how the Jewish people wrote and…