Columns

Blessed are the poor — in a world of vast disparities

Jan 30, 2021

More grim news from Oxfam’s annual report released last week: one thousand of the world’s richest people recovered their losses arising from the pandemic within nine months.
God cannot tell a lie

Jan 30, 2021

Lying is the most pernicious of evils, the most dangerous of sins, the worst of blasphemes, and the one sin that is unforgiveable. Perhaps we need to be reminded of that today, given our present culture where we are in danger of losing the very idea of reality and truth. Nothing is more dangerous.
Normal? New normal? Or should we move to a new world?

Jan 24, 2021

I was shocked to read that, in India, some people are even ‘venerating’ the killer of Mahatma Gandhi — a right-wing religious extremist, who felt that the independence leader was making too many concessions.
Grieving Death

Jan 23, 2021

Bless his effort! It made for a great story, a gripping myth, but it never made for a religion or an eternal dance because that’s not what Mary Magda
Truth vs tyranny

Jan 16, 2021

Recent events at home and abroad have highlighted the worrying situation, not only with the pandemic.
What is love asking of us now?

Jan 15, 2021

“You can safely assume you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do” (Anne Lamott).
Precarious economic times – Jesus would have been familiar with that

Jan 09, 2021

Capernaum sits north of the Sea of Galilee, which is 21km long and 13km wide – actually a fresh-water lake ideal for fishing. It was along the shores here that Jesus spent much time during his ministry, with Capernaum as a primary base. Up to seven of his apostles may have been fishers.
What is your practice?

Jan 09, 2021

These are good questions and the prayer practices they refer to are good practices; but I take issue with one thing. The tendency here is to identify the essence of one’s discipleship and religious observance with a single explicit prayer practice, and that can be reductionist and simplistic. Discipleship is about more than one prayer practice.
Living Water in the House of Bread

Dec 24, 2020

In the year 2000, I thought it would be an opportune time to visit the Holy Land, and especially Bethlehem for Christmas to see what it was like two m
Christmas as shattering the containers of our expectations

Dec 24, 2020

Funny how God invariably shatters the containers of our expectations. We have a notion of how God should act and God ends up acting in a way that shat