Letter from America
How much has changed?
Josh Moody
Date posted: 1 Nov 2015
Yet another survey of American religious beliefs has come out recently.
This was a telephone survey of 1,000 adults that purports to show that most Americans (no surprise here), including those who do not affiliate with a denomination of one kind or another, believe in a ‘Creator’*.
Letter from America
Caesar, Planned Parenthood & God
Josh Moody
Date posted: 1 Oct 2015
Jesus famously said: ‘Render
unto Caesar that which is
Caesar’s, and to God that
which is God’s.’
Scholars have long debated the exact significance of this phrase. Certainly it was a brilliant, Houdini-like, escape from the trap that
was set for him. He took a coin, showed them
the face on the coin, and pointed out that it
might not be so immoral after all to give
Caesar taxes, given that the money they were
using was distributed by Caesar anyway. But
at the same time he made it clear that allegiance through all and above all was to God.
Letter from America
Out of Africa
Josh Moody
Date posted: 1 Apr 2015
This week a man nicknamed ‘Africa’ was shot by police in Skid Row in Los Angeles.
Unusually after such incidents it emerged that there was a video of the event that had been posted online. No doubt, there will be discussion as to what exactly took place and why the man was shot. The police say that he was grabbing one of the policemen’s guns.
Letter from America
WWJD about Ferguson?
Josh Moody
Date posted: 1 Jan 2015
The slogan WWJD (What Would Jesus Do?) was popular some years ago.
It was a way of attempting to summarise a complicated ethical challenge to follow in the footsteps of Jesus. For all its brevity, and inevitable inaccuracy (there are some ways that the answer to what Jesus would do cannot be applied to mere mortals like you and me – walking on water, for one thing) it is an interesting question to ask about the current crisis taking place in Ferguson.
Letter from America
First they came for the fire chiefs...
Josh Moody
Date posted: 1 Feb 2015
The year was off to such a good start.
Finally we said goodbye to Newsweek’s scandalous butchery of the multi-faceted academic debate regarding the historical reliability of the Bible – a reliability that has eminent, respected and authoritative defenders from the late great F.F. Bruce to the esteemed denizens of Tyndale House in Cambridge University. Perhaps the New Year would usher in a season of common sense to Western culture. No such luck.
Bedside table
Ruth Williams
Date posted: 1 Jul 2015
What’s the last thing you do at night? Ruth Williams sets us a challenge
What does your bedside table look like?
Captured by terrorists
Rebecca Davis
Date posted: 1 Mar 2015
What would you do if you were kidnapped and held at gunpoint? Russell Stendal faced that experience.
In 1959, at the age of four, Russell Stendal prayed for God to call his parents to be missionaries.
