I had a number of reading surprises this year. Several books which I expected to be great turned out to be only OK; some books I expected to be OK turned out to be great. (The life of Olaudah Equiano is a good example of the latter: an extraordinary autobiography, travelogue, critique of slavery...

Andrew’s much anticipated annual review of books is just a post or two around the corner. If I were to compose a similar list, Elliot Clark’s Evangelism as Exiles would be right at the top of the pile. This is a book all too rare in Christian publishing: deeply biblical, profoundly...

It is a truism that the healthier and more pain-free a society is the more fear and anxiety there seems to be in that society about health and pain.

This is true in Christian apologetics, where one of the biggest western ‘defeater beliefs’ is the problem of suffering – a problem...

The story of Samson is both comic (killing a thousand men with a donkey’s jawbone) and brutal (killing a thousand men with a donkey’s jawbone). It is also a story rich in applications for us.

In his encounter with Delilah (told in Judges 16), Samson provides us with a picture and...

While in the States recently many of my friends had their heads in their hands over Paula White, President Trump’s ‘spiritual adviser’.

For those in the UK who may not be so familiar with White there is a helpful briefing available from The Gospel Coalition – but the main...

The world really pays the supreme compliment to the Catholic Church in being intolerant of her tolerating even the appearance of the evils which it tolerates in everything else. A fierce light does indeed beat upon that throne and blacken every blot; but the interest here is in the fact that even...

Do our English Bible accurately reflect the writing of the original authors? It’s an important question. Some would argue (or more often assume) that they don't. The view that that the text of the Bible has been corrupted and changed over the centuries is commonplace even among those who have...

Is the second person of the Trinity omnipresent and incarnate at the same time? Is the Son of God both asleep in a manger, or a boat, or even dead, while he is also filling all things and sustaining the universe? The so-called extra Calvinisticum gives a confident yes—and the Reformed view of...

For many Christians, Kanye West’s new album Jesus is King is the perfect example of a piece of Christian art. It is wholesome, uplifting and features the highest quality of craftsmanship, but most importantly it is not just made by a Christian, but it’s content is unapologetically,...

Chesterton on mischievous form:

All I ask is Health; what could be simpler than the beautiful gift of Health? Why not be content to enjoy for ever the glow of youth and the fresh enjoyment of being fit?

Why study dry and dismal sciences of anatomy and physiology; why enquire about the whereabouts of...

I had a realisation recently: There may often be more common ground between opposing viewpoints on ethical issues than we tend to assume, and that recognition could prove hugely useful in discussions and debates on these issues.

This common ground is found in underlying goals. Behind every ethical...

On Friday 25 October, hip hop superstar Kanye West released his 9th solo album. At the time of writing, it is number 2 in the UK album charts and expected to top the Billboard charts in the US. My guess would be that the Think Theology readership would not have contributed greatly to the 21 million...

For those who don’t have the time, money or patience to read Tom Holland’s Dominion, which Joel reviewed recently, here’s a paragraph from Chesterton that pretty much sums it up:

The fact is this: that the modern world, with its modern movements, is living on its Catholic capital....

If our doctrine is shaped more by what we sing than what we hear—“show me your song list, and I’ll show you your theology”—then song selection is an important pastoral task. That doesn’t necessarily mean that pastors need to meddle in the specific choices that...

I am a pro-American Brit – I love the country, like the people, and could happily live there. I’m not so keen on all American imports though. I don't drink Coke and I am not that keen on the idea of 'proms'. The school disco of my youth was bad enough, why ramp up the pressure with a...

In earlier posts, I have argued against the common idea that the image of God was lost or damaged by sin, noting that it is hard to find a scriptural warrant for this view, and have proposed an understanding of the image as denoting a general family resemblance between God and humans and a...

The messages from September's Convergence Conference are all available now, and free to view, thanks to the good folk at Bridgeway Church. You can see from the titles what each one is about, but if you only have time to watch one, I recommend Matt Chandler's Friday evening session. (Christine...

The surge in numbers of those identifying as transgender is one of the strangest and most confusing trends of our cultural moment. Especially striking is the number of teenagers identifying as trans: one stark statistic is that the Tavistock Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS) has seen...

The title “popular historian” might commonly bring to mind the equivalent of a tabloid hack, who won’t let facts spoil the yarn he’s spinning. If we imagine an author with no patience for scholarly rigour, it seems the wrong category for Tom Holland. His books do read like...

Tom Holland’s Dominion: The Making of the Western Mind is certainly one of the books of the year, and one of those rare contemporary volumes that I would recommend all pastors read. I am thrilled that Joel Virgo has written us a proper review for this coming Wednesday, but in advance of that,...

In my last post, I argued against the common view that the image of God is lost or damaged through human sin. Despite its popularity, there is no Scriptural warrant for the view and there is biblical support for the idea that every human is created and remains in the image of God, just as Adam and...

Was the image of God in humanity lost or damaged when Adam and Eve rebelled against God? It seems that many people think it was. Berkhof states, ‘it is unwarranted to say that man has completely lost the image of God’, but also says that ‘the image of God has indeed been vitiated...

The UK’s membership of Europe has been controversial ever since it was first suggested and certainly since Charles de Gaulle said “Non” to our joining the EEC in 1967. As Brussels today considers the latest Brexit proposal from the British government it is worth considering how...

One of the ways our economy impoverishes us spiritually is by teaching us that the only sort of work that is really work is work that a member of the capitalist class will pay us to do in the form of a wage of some sort.

But there is plenty of good work to be done in our neighbourhoods and cities...

This is such a searching comment from Sam Allberry’s (excellent) forthcoming book, Why Does God Care Who I Sleep With?:

It’s common these days when someone’s wrong is exposed for them to say, “I don’t know what came over me; this isn’t who I am”. David says...