“But do you really think the miracles in the Bible happened?” This question was posed to me by my friend Edith. She is courageous, generous, kind and open. She’s also an atheist. She’s fine with me having a faith, but in her experience, Christians are not well-considered, thoughtful people. I think until she met me she had not really met a Christian who could ‘give an answer for the hope they had’. So she’s curious about how I can be a Christian and interested in the sciences, popular culture, and feminism, and she asks me questions about things like miracles in the Bible. This is not an article about apologetics – defending the faith to outsiders – or evangelism. It’s about doubt. Because i
Nehemiah Chapter 4 is a beautiful story of God rebuilding ruins. All the people of God had been gathered and they began to rebuild the walls around Jerusalem that had been laying in ruins – but they face some strong opposition to the rebuilding. This was not just a little wall that they were building, it wasn’t a picket fence around the city. The wall was going to be 12m high, 2.5m wide and have 34 watchtowers. Yet the wall began as ruins that had been laying in disrepair and desolation for 140 years. I love that God was going to be faithful to rebuild the ruined walls of Jerusalem and God is faithful to rebuild the ruins in our lives! We live in a broken world that is not perfect and as a r
Influential pastor, author, and theologian John Piper was recently asked for his thoughts on the tsunami of powerful men exposed for sexual abuse in the wake of the crimes of Harvey Weinstein. The question referenced a past article that Piper summed up as follows: “egalitarian assumptions in our culture, and to a huge degree in the church, have muted — silenced, nullified — one of the means that God has designed for the protection and the flourishing of women. It has silenced the idea that men as men — by virtue of their created, God-given maleness, apart from any practical competencies that they have or don’t have — men have special responsibilities to care for and protect and honor women.”
We women often complain about the absence of our stories in our country's history, especially in the history of the church. The truth is that extraordinary women were doing great things but unless told it takes only a few decades for their stories to be lost. Linda Banks understands this and, with her husband Robert, has produced a book about one such woman who by the grace of God changed the lives of hundreds of Chinese boys who lived with blindness. Amy Oxley Wilkinson was an Australian nurse who, from the time she was young, had a strong belief that God was calling her to serve him with her whole life, and in particular as a missionary in China. With great courage and determination, and d
The realisation that a loved one has Dementia is heartbreaking. As we travelled along the road of mum’s Dementia, it was hard for us to find our way. It was hard to live through this grief. A grief for things-that-are, and things-that-will-be. How do you grieve when someone is still alive? How do you rejoice in a life that is diminishing? Simple joys seep away as recognition is lost, words evaporate, consciousness disappears? How do you care for someone who is lost in a frightening place, where all have become strangers and everywhere is confusion? How do you go on with your day to day life when no-one knows the weight of sorrow that you bear? No-one has died, there has been no funeral. And
Tell us a little about yourself: The first thing you need to know about me, is that I plan my day around coffee. It used to be custom in Turkey that if a husband did not provide his wife with enough coffee, that was grounds for divorce. Also, I like puns. I’m the Associate Academic Dean at Morling College, where I lecture in Church History and Old Testament. I’m slowly working towards my PhD on Song of Songs. I’m an indolent poet. I’m married to Will (who provides me with plenty of coffee) and we have a threenager, Atticus, and a newborn, Éowyn. What's your favourite bible passage & why? I always feel like my favourite passage should be poetry and from the Old Testament… but I have to say it
Tell us a little about yourself I have worked as a journalist for the past 18 years, reporting on topics ranging from local politics through to photography and home decorating. I blog about "life, love, and spirituality" at It's a God thing... and enjoy taking acting classes in my spare time. I'm also half-way through a Bachelor of Ministry at Morling College. I'm married with two school-aged children, and we recently moved to Sydney's south-west to serve a church in Beverly Hills. What's your favourite bible passage & why? Luke 7:36-50, where the woman wets Jesus' feet with her tears and anoints him with expensive perfume. I love the passion she shows and the faith she demonstrates, and in
What kind of woman comes to mind when you think of a Holy, or a Godly woman? I recently asked this question to several of my friends and these were some of first words they said, modest, pious, chaste, and passive. When I asked myself this question I kind of imagined a painting of Mother Mary. A renaissance era type, where Mary has very soft facial features, kind eyes, and her head is just delicately tilted to one side. These responses and imageries left me to wonder, is our conception of what it means for women to pursue holiness more bent towards patriarchy than how it’s understood in the Bible? I think for many of us the answer is, yes. (We could probably also say something similar about
Here in Tanzania, when you become a Christian, you give up drinking alcohol. There’s little cultural distinction between drunkenness and social drinking or drinking in moderation, so becoming a Christian requires a wholesale rejection of alcohol. Meanwhile, many Australian Christians see no issue with drinking alcohol where it does not lead to drunkenness and even point out that the Bible makes the distinction: surely when Paul tells Timothy to take a little wine for his stomach, he is not directing him to get drunk! To an Australian, the Tanzanian approach seems like throwing the baby out with the bathwater. But here in Tanzania, Christian commitment has become conflated with rejecting alco
My hackles always rise a little when people make statements about “what the Bible says about women” because (at least from my reading) outside of the story that Jesus died for all sinners, including both women and men, the Bible doesn’t follow a narrow cultural narrative defining women to a particular role. Which makes sense, right? Since we are half the planet, we are diverse and we live out our lives in the unique situations that God has placed us with the individual personalities, gifts and foibles that he gives us. 1 I find it helpful to read stories about women that directly contrast with each other, so I pair Abigail who so aptly and defly circumvents her husband’s incompetence (1 Samu
Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Hebrews 12.1-2 On a weekday in July 2015 I was doing my usual marketing / communications work at my computer, the kids were all at school and I had my usual podcast playlist on. I had known for some time there was something I had to do but couldn’t put my finger on it. But on this day, whilst drinking a
I have listened today In hope but with some fear Maybe I think, what we have seen and heard today Women's and men's voices raised together will change nothing But then I remembered who our God is And so today I remind you my sisters and brothers To be steadfast. Stand firm, speak up even though you tremble. We can give ourselves fully to the work of the Lord For nothing we do for God is done in vain Remember, that as you stand, you do not do so alone this is a community of friends holding each other up And at the heart of that friendship is the one who no longer calls us servants, but instead calls us friends. Jesus. And Jesus has sent us another like himself, his Spirit. And so we must ensu
