Challenge Literature Fellowship - AfricaPublished in 2017
A woman in my church was recently diagnosed with breast cancer around the time she was told she was pregnant with twins. She was advised to abort the babies and get immediate surgery and chemotherapy.
What a ghastly choice to face! Either kill your unborn babies and try to save your life for the sake of your husband and seven small children, or continue with the pregnancy and potentially end up dying and leaving your young family to fend for themselves.Continue reading
Published in 2019
Netflix’s recent production Black Mirror: Bandersnatch is unique in that it that is the first interactive movie – allowing the viewer to make a choice at several intervals as to what the lead character will do next and how the story ends.
It cleverly questions how much control we really have over our lives and highlights how even the most banal of decisions may have unforeseen consequences. It could also be construed to be subtly underplaying our responsibility on how our lives turn out: implying that our choices are so constrained by outside forces that we are all just victims of our culture, genetics and upbringing.Continue reading
The expression of the little girl in this photo is so delightful! It reminds us that children still have the capacity to be overcome with awe and wonder and excitement, in a way that us cynical and jaded adults seldom experience.
In the modern world where so many mysteries of science and biology have been discovered, where so many disasters and disappointments happen routinely, and where our lives are so busy, it is rare to feel awe.
Continue readingAustralians are swindled out of at least $50 million a year by local and international telephone scammers linked to organised crime, according to a recent article on News.com.
These sliver-tongued cold callers, often supported by slick websites, promise high returns for an average investment of $20 000 to $30 000.
Continue readingOne of the most convincing arguments for Christianity for me is how bizarrely counter-intuitive it is. It is a crazy Alice in Wonderland religion that turns “normal” ideas on their head!
What person would have been able to invent a religion where paradox is paramount? Where the more you give, the more you gain? Where the rich are poor and the poor are rich? Where dying (to yourself) is living and living (to yourself) is dying? Where you have to give everything up to gain the whole world? Where you treat your enemies like your friends, instead of exacting revenge on them? Where you love those who hate you and hate those who love you? (The last in the context of loving Christ Jesus so much that you are willing to disregard or abandon those you love to follow His will.)
I saw a headline yesterday that made me want to both laugh at its absurdity and cry for the state of our civilization: Trans Male YouTuber’s New Complaint: Feminine Hygiene Products ‘Very Female Oriented’.
Is it just me, or does it feel like we have fallen down the rabbit hole and are now at the Mad Hatter’s tea party? Even 20 years ago could you credit that such a bizarre headline would ever be possible?Continue reading
Soon it will be Valentine’s Day and the shops will be filled with red heart cards, chocolate gifts and flowers for us to give to our nearest and dearest.
But even if you write the whole thing off as a commerical con, most of us understand that the principle behind Valentine’s Day holds true – if you love someone you want to give them things. You want to do stuff for them.
Think of your closest relationship – whether it is romantic or familial – if that person tells you that they love you but never acts on that feeling, how loved would you feel?
Continue readingMy teenager was asked by a boy at school this week “I’m an atheist does that mean that I am condemned to hell?” She wasn’t sure what to say – as a Christian she knows that the Bible teaches that apart from belief in the atoning death of Jesus on the cross we all go to hell, but how to say that in a way that doesn’t sound harsh and judgemental?
Continue readingI recently watched a series on Netflix (Marvel Comic’s Jessica Jones) where the villain had the most terrifying superpower I could imagine: to be able to mind-control people and make them do anything he tells them to.Continue reading
Grace. You might know it as a girl’s name or a prayer at meal times, but that is not the amazing kind of grace I want to talk about here.
Grace is a Biblical concept that basically means getting something we don’t deserve (sometimes paired with the term mercy, which means not getting what we do deserve). For instance, getting a promotion when we deserve to be fired, or getting a prize when we deserve a fine.
Christians talk about the grace of God in terms of us receiving His undeserved, free forgiveness which is not earned by moral living, but accepted as a gift, through faith.Continue reading