Put the X back in Xmas

Now that Christmas is over, I don't mind saying how tired I am of hearing Christians banging on about how we spell it. As if getting people to spell it C-h-r-i-s-t instead of X- would be a major victory.

In fact, I'm thinking of starting a campaign to 'Put the cross back in Xmas'. Because if we gave more attention to the ultimate end and purpose of Christ's coming at this time of the year, instead of just its beginning, we might pursue a bit more self-denial and less self-indulgence. And that would surely get us closer to living the kind of life he wants for us...

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Robbing The Poor To Feed The Rich?

Now that cuts in spending seem to be on the agenda of all the main political parties, the big questions still to be answered are: how much? And where will the axe fall? According to a recent poll by Ipsos MORI, published by the BBC ( http://bit.ly/d168R ), the most popular candidate with most people is overseas aid. That’s not really surprising. It’s understandable that during severe financial crisis most people want our government to look after our own affairs first. Charity, as the saying goes, begins at home. But is it really right for the poorest nations of the world to be penalised for a crisis that was brought on by the rich? The developing world already spends $1.3 on debt repayment for every $1 it receives in grants (Source: World Centric, http://bit.ly/b5C7f ). Every day at least $100 million flows from the poor of the world into the pockets of the rich. Existing problems like drought and famine will not go away just because there is a worldwide recession, and the poor are mo...

The Ordinariness of Faith

I hit some traffic last Saturday. I don’t mean literally hit, but I do mean traffic. I was driving back from Barnes to Twickenham when suddenly the traffic ahead ground almost to a standstill. Seeing how long and slow moving the queue was, I took a leap of faith. I took a blind left turn and switched on the satnav. Without really knowing where I was going, I followed the satnav to Roehampton, where I hit another major jam. Fortunately on the satnav screen I noticed a side road heading towards Richmond Park. So I swung off-piste again and drove through the park, missing the traffic and enjoying an uninterrupted drive home. The leap of faith paid off. How is it, I wonder, that some people can write off faith as some sort of mindless and mystical belief, and despise it as unreasonable? They reduce it to something ethereal and strange, and talk about ‘people of faith’ as though there is some other group of people who are not ‘of faith’. And yet we all exercise faith in very ordinary...

A God Who Reaches Out

Years ago I was guest speaker at a conference of a group of churches in a remote part of SW Uganda. One of the delegates I met there had walked for a couple of days to attend, sleeping out in the bush under the stars, and drinking water from whatever muddy pool he came across. I've been back several times since, but I've never forgotten the remarkable dedication of that one individual. It's been widely acknowledged, and I've written here previously, that the universe seems to speak to us of an architect - a creator of everything we see around us. If that's true, it would require similar dedication on their part for us to have any chance of knowing and understanding them. The innumerable religions and concepts of God that we find around the world today, not to mention throughout history, and the many other theories of origins, are testimony to this. Left to ourselves we are incapable of figuring out definitively, to everyone's agreement and satisfaction, who or w...

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