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Josh Moody

Date posted: 1 May 2013

I grew up in a boarding school. My father was a boarding school house master, and we lived on the grounds of this community.

I did not grow up in a manse or vicarage or parsonage. My children, of course, are growing up ‘Pastor’s Kids’ (PKs). How can I help them flourish in that environment?

Josh Moody

Date posted: 1 Dec 2012

‘Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s...’ This is the famous pronouncement of the Master in response to a particularly intense period of Pharisaic grilling. But what precisely does it mean as Christians in America negotiate a cultural landscape that appears less friendly to traditional Christian values and the message of the gospel than in the recent past?

The blogosphere is not short of answers, but I suggest that 1 John, in particular, provides a compelling look at the right way to respond. In the context in which John was writing, there was an incipient ‘Gnosticism’ that was advocating a toned down spirituality, denying that Jesus was the Christ in ‘flesh’, and therefore that it was possible to be spiritual without actual practical commitment to the local church or, indeed, without practising righteousness. In other words, in response to pressures from a pagan environment, the church was susceptible to a form of teaching that allowed it to live in a less combative fashion with its neighbours — understandable in its own right — but by means of denying core doctrines (‘Jesus is the Christ’) and core moral behaviour (‘practising righteousness’).

Josh Moody

Date posted: 1 Oct 2011

To even attempt to broach this demanding topic in a few hundred words is to rush in where angels fear to tread.

So first a preliminary word: this will not be exhaustive. It will not be ‘exhausting’ either, for which you may breathe a sigh of relief, because of its appropriate brevity.

Josh Moody

Date posted: 1 Aug 2010

Let me talk about an important book bearing on the American scene.

Sebastian Junger’s War (New York, 2010) is a specifically non-religious book, but with great relevance to assessments of the effects and experience of war in Afghanistan for American troops. Junger ‘embedded’ himself with the ultimate front line troops in a far flung outpost of Afghanistan to experience daily life in combat.

Josh Moody

Date posted: 1 Feb 2010

Whether or not — and to what extent, and at what speed — the international market economy is recovering is beyond the scope of this paper, and certainly beyond my expertise as a writer.

But from the ground up it still looks like, to say the least, we are in ‘interesting’ financial times, and some list it as ongoing through 2010 at least (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_crisis_of_2007%E2%80%932010). What does this mean for the church?

Josh Moody

Date posted: 1 Nov 2007

So here’s the kind of question I most commonly get asked about our church. Not ‘what do you believe?’, not ‘what is your vision for the church?’, not even ‘what kind of programmes do you have for our children?’ No, the question I most commonly get asked — by outsiders, you understand — is ‘who do people vote for?’

The election is still a year away (November 2008…), but already positioning is going on for the religious vote. Rudy Giuliani, famed former mayor of New York City, is trying to deal with the possible negative repercussions of his well-known pro-abortion stance. Conservatives, it is felt, will not possibly support him for that single reason. And, in fact, an influential group called The Council for National Policy, has voted that if Giuliani is nominated as the Republican presidential candidate they will seek to form a Third Party. That’s fighting talk.

Josh Moody

Date posted: 1 Jul 2007

On Sunday June 3, eight of the Presidential hopefuls for the Democratic Party lined up for a publicly televised debate on CNN out of Manchester, New Hampshire.

On Monday June 4, the three ‘first tier’ candidates (Clinton, Obama, Edwards) lined up for a publicly televised event broadcast by CNN out of George Washington University in Washington DC. This time they talked about their faith.

Josh Moody

Date posted: 1 Nov 2006

On the one hand, it’s a small story. It only relates to 50 students or so. Other than a cameo appearance in Love Actually, Wisconsin is not a name brand state.

On the other hand, this is the third in a row. First it was Rutgers University in New Jersey. Then it was Georgetown University. Now the University of Wisconsin has ‘De-recognised’ the Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship group. On October 2, IVCF filed suit.

Josh Moody

Date posted: 1 Jun 2006

It is an interesting experience having lived for so long as a foreigner. Before coming to America, I lived for a year in the former Soviet Union, and before that for a year in Canada, but by and large most of my life was spent in England (a good ten years of it in Cambridge).

Having now lived for seven or so years in America, it’s becoming increasingly true that I feel the sense of being without home that, for the Christian, underlines the spiritual reality of this world not being our home but that we are ‘just a-passing through’.

Josh Moody

Date posted: 1 Mar 2004

This year the Super Bowl was between the New England Patriots and the Carolina Panthers. During the Super Bowl I went to a Super Bowl party.

A Super Bowl party means eating and watching the game on TV, or at least the commercials which air in between the frequent time outs and other interruptions which so bemuse a British observer. The commercials are particularly expensive to air during this prime time viewing moment of the year and consequently vie for being the most memorable or funny.

Josh Moody

Date posted: 1 Dec 2003

I recently went to hear Chuck Colson, the famed author of Born Again, once notorious as an insider in the political Watergate scandal. He was sent to prison. But in the midst of the maelstrom surrounding him, Chuck Colson became 'born again'. Ever since, he has been the highly regarded and influential leader of Prison Fellowship.

Colson was speaking about Jonathan Edwards. In his lecture he touched on a wide variety of contemporary themes and issues that are facing evangelicals. In particular, he suggested, the drift towards moral relativism was likely to face a turnaround as a result of September 11. It's hard, was the gist of what he was saying, to swallow the idea that there is no evil in the world when you watch airplanes on suicide missions colliding into buildings containing thousands of human lives.

Josh Moody

Date posted: 1 Sep 2001

What is the largest Protestant denomination in the world? By some counts, the answer to that question is the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC).

The SBC is just astonishingly big. Imagine the biggest big thing you can think of then times it by something even bigger. That's about it. Since its organisation in 1845 in Augusta, Georgia, the SBC has grown to 15.8 million members who worship in more than 40,000 churches in the United States.

Josh Moody

Date posted: 1 Aug 2001

There is a certain on-going friendly rivalry between Canada and America. One instance of this is the continuing disagreement between the two countries over who won the last war they fought against each other in the 19th century. Americans are taught that they did. Canadians know they did.

Another instance of this friendly rivalry is a radio show in Canada called Asking Americans. In this show, a radio reporter travels down to America and asks Americans various spoof questions. These questions are designed to expose Americans as being woefully ignorant of what is going on in the world outside their national boundaries.

Josh Moody

Date posted: 1 Apr 2001

Writing from the US, Josh Moody aspires to be an evangelical Alistair Cooke as he begins a series ...