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Doubting Defying Jihad: Questioning the Popular Conversion Story

...told that Christians and Jews were responsible - the emphasis on Jews and particularly Christians by a militant group based in Pakistan is strange. All the terrorist groups in Pakistan direct their efforts towards Hindus (especially in Kashmir) or other Muslims, since Christians are such a tiny minority there. Things rapidly become even stranger when a Mullah displays weapons to the group of girls telling them “… one day you will get to handle these” as the book continues describing them being encouraged to aspire to physical violence towards Jews and Christians specifically, the description of “Aunt Selma” volunteering for and dying fighting Jihad is...

Does Easter Have Pagan Origins?

...n is that Christians have been celebrating (and debating) Easter/Passover since at least AD 150, long before Constantine or even any other “pagan” influence could take hold. Is the Name “Easter” really the Anglo-Saxon goddess Eostre? In short: no. There’s also no link between “Ishtar” and “Easter” either. Ishar was an ancient Near Eastern fertility goddess, but just because the names sound somewhat similar in English, it doesn’t mean there is any etymological connection at all. Ishtar is also originally Akkadian, which was a language spoken in Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq and Syria) between about 2,800 BC and 500 AD, and was also the godde...

Will UK Councils Criminalise Christianity? The Alarming Precedent Set by a Labour Council

...Every now and then something happens in this country that feels small on the surface but carries a deeper spiritual weight beneath it. In this case it comes from a Labour council just outside of London when in March of this year, Rushmoor Borough Council attempted to criminalise Christian street preaching. The injunction has thankfully been paused (for now) as Christians rallied, prayed, and pushed back. But the implications of what nearly happened, and could still happen, should give all of us pause. Because once one council tries something like this, others start paying attention. A precedent has been set — not necessarily in law, but in what could be....

Lent: Day 6 - Ignatius to the Magnesians

...elates to Christians, “For if we still live according to the Jewish law,” Ignatius says, “we acknowledge that we have not received grace”, which you can see is a statement echoing Paul’s sentiments throughout his letters to the churches – “you are not under law, but under grace” as he wrote in Romans 6:14 (and Rom 7:4,6; Gal 4:21 etc). This whole chapter is pretty much a short summary of Paul’s teaching on the Law and how we Christians are no longer bound by it; "You who want to be justified by the law have cut yourselves off from Christ; you have fallen away from grace" (Gal 5:4), or as Ignatius phrases it, "it is absurd to profess Christ Je...

Lent Day 28: Athanasius: Life of Anthony: Chaps. 71-80

...fs of the Christians for the preaching of the cross, which as we know from Scripture, is not something unexpected (1 Cor 1:18). On hearing their objections, Anthony answered them by turning their own beliefs against them; Which is more beautiful, to confess the Cross or to attribute to those whom you call gods adultery and the seduction of boys? [...] Next, which is better, to say that the Word of God was not changed, but, being the same, He took a human body for the salvation and well-being of man, that having shared in human birth He might make man partake in the divine and spiritual nature; or to liken the divine to senseless animals and consequently to wo...

The Problem of Suffering and How We Approach it

...The topic of human suffering is a subject many Christians struggle with, and is an issue many theologians have written about over the centuries — so it's definitely not something I can fully address in a single blog post! But there are some general principles we can find in Scripture that many Christians can/do accept, which should act as a starting point to addressing this subject, such as: We live in a fallen world due to sin (Gen 3), and so things aren’t perfect and neither are people, therefore suffering can happen from illness, nature, and human action (or inaction). Not all suffering is necessarily “bad”, from a Christian perspective. For exam...