Rethinking Christianity

 My Confession / Why I Am Still A Christian

I have been a Christian all my life. As a youngster I went to Sunday school, and as a teenager my church youth group was pretty much the centre of my world. Christian youth camps were the highlight of my year and I helped run the Christian Unions in my school, sixth form college and eventually university. It all suited me just fine – for me the Christian Bubble was a very happy place to be, and to this day I have never not been part of some form of church. Read more >

Rethinking Christianity: Deconstruction

Over the last ten years my Christian faith has undergone a dramatic transformation. The beliefs that were once absolutely fundamental to my understanding of the universe and my own existence have been gradually deconstructed. It has been a confusing, unsettling and sometimes painful process, but I now feel I have in some way emerged from that confusion, and am feeling a sense of clarity, hope and excitement about my faith that I have never felt before. Read more >

Faith in the Fog Series

In this series I tell the story of my experiences with doubt, skepticism, mental health, and forging a different kind of faith.

Rethinking Christianity: Hell (How My Faith Evolved From A Story Of Fear To A Story Of Hope)

Growing up in church I knew the Christian message back to front. It was my reality, my Truth, my reason for living. It went like this: God created me in my mother’s womb, and loved me so much that he wanted me to have eternal life with Him in Heaven. Tragically, all of humanity had fallen and was deeply sinful and bad, and God hated sin so much He couldn’t stand to look at me. In His amazing love He sent His only Son to take my punishment by dying on a cross, so that I wouldn’t have to be punished and could spend eternity in paradise. Read more >

Love, Love, Love: the painfully misunderstood, profoundly simple, earth-shattering message of Jesus

If someone was to ask me to sum up the message of Jesus in a few words, I would probably quote the Beatles. All you need is love. Not just shallow, gooey, fluffy, romantic love. The kind of love that sets people free. Read more >

Confessions of a Doubting Christian

Some days I find it really hard to believe in God.I sit in church surrounded by the familiar, friendly faces, perusing the notice sheet as the worship band finish their sound check with a chorus of ‘10,000 Reasons’, and I’m convinced we’ve made it all up.We’re kidding ourselves, aren’t we? It’s obviously just wishful thinking. A fairy story. A diversion from reality, far too good to be true. Read more >

Dear God, Help Me To Believe In You

Dear God, Today I am not sure you exist, but I’m praying anyway. It seems as though the older I get and the more I learn, the less sure I am about anything. I never used to doubt you, not really. I was taught that I could have absolute confidence and certainty in my beliefs, and I did. I was taught that there were clear explanations for everything if I was just clever enough to understand. Read more >

Why Penal Substitutionary Atonement Theory makes me want to throw up a little bit in my mouth

Sorry about the title…I had to get your attention somehow. Seriously – if you go to church and you’re not sure what I’m talking about, listen up. This is the ‘good news’ I suspect you were taught at church: Read more >

A Thoroughly Biblical Argument Against Penal Substitutionary Atonement

A common criticism of people like me who openly oppose Penal Substitutionary Atonement theory is that we are picking and choosing the bits of the Bible we like, whilst ignoring some of the trickier bits. I intend now to try and make it super clear that this is not what we are doing. Read more >

I Don’t Have The Luxury Of Despair

When faced with so much senseless suffering in our world, I – like many others – can struggle to see a deeper meaning or purpose behind it. Despair can sometimes seem like the only reasonable response. That is, until I notice all the other stuff. Read more >

Is Being A Christian Just About Being a Good Person?

Honestly? Yes, that’s pretty much the gist of it. But hear me out – there is a lot more to it than that. I’m not in anyway belittling the radical, vital and life-giving transformation that takes place when we become followers of Jesus.I am suggesting that it is more to do with transformation in this life and less to do with a transaction to secure our ticket to heaven in the next life. Read more >

Rethinking Christianity: The Message of Jesus

What if the message of Jesus that is widely understood by Christians is a distorted version of his original message? What if our understanding of Jesus’ message is actually a concoction of selected quotes from Jesus and Paul, Greek philosophy, and a post-enlightenment desire to reduce everything down into a neat, scientific formula? Read more >

Rethinking Christianity: Sin and Salvation (What James Cameron, The European Migrant Crisis And Harry Potter Have Taught Me About God And The Human Condition)

‘Sin’ is one of those odd, stuffy-sounding Christian words that nowadays means very little outside of church. Even in church I often feel like it deserves to be tucked away, collecting dust on the shelf next to the 1950s hymn books and Bibles with missing front covers. Read more >

A Deeper Magic: Love Demands No Punishment

“Though the Witch knew the Deep Magic, there is a magic deeper still which she did not know. Her knowledge goes back only to the dawn of time. But if she could have looked a little further back, into the stillness and the darkness before Time dawned, she would have read there a different incantation.” Read more >

‘The Idol of Feelings’?: Jesus, Mental Health and the Quest for Happiness

Feelings are our window to the world. They colour our experiences and shape our lives and our relationships. When I hear the word “happiness”, I don’t picture a constant state of uninterrupted bliss. I think of a healthy mental state in which I am able to be fully present in the moment, to feel the ups and downs of life. A state of inner peace and wellbeing in which I feel secure, grounded, centered. In this state I respond emotionally to things as they happen – I laugh, sing, shout, sigh, weep… I can fully engage with the people around me… I don’t always feel happy and joyful but I do feel alive. Read more >

Ode to Greenbelt: Heaven in a Muddy Field

Greenbelt is my happy place. It is an explosive celebration of humanity; a vibrant patchwork bursting at the seams with colour, creativity and culture. Where else do silent meditation, soaring harmonies, belly laughs, gravity-defying acrobatics, life drawing, ‘dad-dancing’, poetry, prayer, bhangra and breakdancing come together so naturally? Read more >

Christianity and Homosexuality: I Think God Makes People Gay

Kaleidoscope Thinking

If I look through a kaleidoscope, I see all the colours of the rainbow arranged in whatever pattern the plastic of the contraption allows. Many of us had tremendous fun, as children, staring through the distortion at the myriad of colour and shapes displaying there. But how often do we take that into adult life? It seems as we grow up, our palette of colours becomes smaller and smaller. It feels like society wants us to see in shades of grey, with hints of black and white. How terrible. Read more>

A Light in the Darkness: The Reality of the Christmas Story

How you think of the Christmas story may not have changed much since you were a child. The beautiful image of a pregnant lady on a donkey and a cosy stable full of smiling people snuggled up in clean hay. The reality was quite different. Read more >

Image via Pixabay