Mysticism is often misunderstood but is in fact very simple, whatever faith a person follows – a mystical believer is one who emphasises the experience of the divine. There are mystics in every faith but, as a Christian, my mystical experience is of Jesus. My faith journey began with a divine encounter and over the years, bathing in the divine presence became the heart and soul of my practice. Despite the satisfaction of spiritual experience, I still felt like... Read more
Deconstruction is unavoidable for the thinking believer, but it can also be hazardous. As someone who has undergone both deconstruction and reconstruction, I want to offer advice on how to do it in a way that protects both wellbeing and aspects of faith that are precious. There is much that needs to be challenged, but in my experience, we can do that without losing our closeness to Jesus or our faith in his love. The key, for me, has been... Read more
I recently asked friends on social media what they believe about ‘original sin’ and got a ton of different answers. Admittedly, many of my friends are deconstructing their faith, so it’s no surprise that opinions vary, but the breadth of the variety revealed how much uncertainty there is around this topic. For the sake of clarity, the doctrine of original sin was developed by Augustine of Hippo in the 4th century. Even for Evangelicals, this should mark it as... Read more
In military terms, surrender is failure – the vanquished power bowing to their vanquisher – but surrender can also mean to yield, like one dancer to another, like one lover to another. It is this lover’s surrender that we offer to God. We are not vanquished; we yield to his love. Surrendering to God doesn’t happen overnight, and today I want to lay out some key steps in moving from rigidity to fluidity, and from defensiveness to trust. Step... Read more
Does God demand that we worship him? Is it a requirement for a believer? Wouldn’t a God who seeks to be worshipped be somehow incomplete? Why would the perfect being need anything from us? For me, the answer is simple; he doesn’t. Worship isn’t something God demands as an offering. He doesn’t sit around, sunning himself in the glow of our adoration. In fact, all my experiences of heartfelt, Spirit-led worship have demonstrated the opposite – rather than focusing on... Read more
When someone hurts us, the most complete expression of mercy has at least two moving parts – telling hard truths and extending forgiveness. By ‘telling hard truths’, I don’t mean aggression or attack; I mean letting people know the impact of their actions, even if doing so is painful for all involved. Naturally, this can only work when all parties are willing, but if possible, experience has taught me that this is the most direct way to heal fractured relationships.... Read more
Among the progressive community, there are many who now believe that Jesus was just an ordinary human who went on to achieve theosis, which in Eastern Christian theology means to ‘be made divine’. In other words, Jesus was one of many human beings who have been deified. Sometimes I perceive a pressure from progressives to ‘progress’ in all the ways that they have, but that doesn’t work for me. We shouldn’t step away from one set of dogma (Evangelicalism)... Read more
Those of us who were brought up in church and later started thinking for ourselves have fragments of dogmatic clutter littered about the mansions of our minds – verses we’ve always seen a certain way…until we don’t. Those sudden moments of clarity can be as hilarious as they are frustrating, followed by the question – what was I thinking all those years? There’s a well-known passage from Mark chapter 10 in which the brothers, James and John, ask Jesus if... Read more
In recent months, I’ve noticed that an increasing number of folk in the Evangelical community are willing to discuss universal salvation and even Biblical inerrancy, but at the first mention of including the LGBTQ+ community, the door gets slammed shut. Dialogue ends there and then. I used to write in the Evangelical channel for Patheos, and the same thing happened there. When writing about the false doctrine of Hell, all manner of conservative voices engaged with me, but once I’d... Read more
If the Bible is read as a flat, literal text, it is a truly terrible manual for parents. If relying solely on scripture, Christian parents might think their responsibilities are limited to disciplining their children and bringing them up in the faith. When looking for Biblical examples, they might find Abraham, willing to sacrifice his son, Jacob, who had clear favourites, or Jephthah, who killed his daughter as an offering to the Lord as an expression of gratitude for victory... Read more
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