Morality and Marriage, Media and Madness
Morality and Marriage, Media and Madness

Two alternatives, that further explicate this theme are: “Let your name be kept holy,” and, “Let your name be treated with reverence.”

It would be a poor theology that thought God kept his name holy by dint of our prayers. God is, in his triune and essential being, majestically holy, separate, and other. No proofs required, no case to state – “I Am who I Am.” What is being said in the Lord’s Prayer is we are to treat God’s name with reverence and fear; we are to make his name holy in our demeanour, intentions and behaviour.

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Simon McIntyreComment
We All Have Our Liturgies
We All Have Our Liturgies

Raised in a Pentecostal church, I have benefitted enormously with an experience of the dynamic of the Holy Spirit – the third person of the trinity. I mean, what’s not to like - no intention of converting sideways nor deconstructing.

Like everyone, we have our strengths that are our weaknesses, extemporaneous prayer being one of them. We have no need to write them down, repeat someone else’s, or feel bound to formatted prayer - it’s spontaneity all the way, and therefore more spiritual. Sounds good and sounds freeing, except it isn’t either necessarily.

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Simon McIntyre Comments
Table and Meal
Table and Meal

The church the apostle Paul saw, the church he lived and died for, was often, if not largely, a church situated around the table. It was formed around prayer, scripture, song, the Lord’s Supper, and a meal – all at the table. Some theologians believe that the Lords Supper is the meeting that gives the church her true gathered identity; it was what marked God’s people out.

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Simon McIntyrethe lords supper, theology, church life Comments
Exclusion – Revisited
Exclusion – Revisited

Exclusion, like discrimination, is a term worth revisiting. This is because of the narrow political focus these words have been forced into adopting, so that to exclude or discriminate is now seen as a social evil, a denial of human rights. In keeping with the great British moral essayist and writer Theodore Dalrymple, when he comments about both the necessity and value of genuine discrimination, (the faculty that discriminates between what is good, of value, and what is not good, of little value), exclusion is normal and necessary.

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Valerie Donati Comment
Blame Shift
Blame Shift

I can think of no better book to evaluate the effect psychology has had on the western mind than Theodore Dalrymple’s masterful little tome, Admirable Evasions: How Psychology Undermines Morality. He is a retired physician, psychiatrist, and author of prophetically inclined books on the moral and social trajectories of the West. Dalrymple plots the course that psychologising has had on morality, and his conclusions aren’t cause for much joy.

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Simon McIntyrechristian leadership, pastoring, church life Comment
My Barber
My Barber

I don’t visit hairdressers as I have no hair to dress. I go to a local barber, and in my area of London they are often of North African, Middle Eastern or Turkish descent. They all have one thing in common aside from my custom – they are family businesses.

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Valerie Donati Comments
False Prophets
False Prophets

The prophet of the Lord, Jeremiah, gives false prophets a thorough lambasting. To some, he declares their days will be shortened, to others exile and loss, but to all stern reproof for not speaking in God’s name when claiming they were – “they have spoken in my name lying words that I did not command them.”

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Simon McIntyre Comments
Why Small Church is Important
Why Small Church is Important

Hindsight is so helpful when it comes to prognostication; we can prophesy with unerring accuracy something that has happened. Which is all a way of saying that we aren’t very good at prediction, and maybe a little better at interpretation.

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Simon McIntyreComment
What I do in Private
What I do in Private

… is my own business. In a sense, this is true, much of the time. But not in the way it is normally appealed to. The idea that private behaviour has no impact on public behaviour is ridiculous; we can’t be two-faced with impunity.

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Simon McIntyreComment
Corporate Cults
Corporate Cults

A recent survey by the WHO, in conjunction with the ILO, found a clear link between overwork and premature death. 745,000 in the Western world died of either a heart attack or stroke in the year 2016 due to overworking. I can only imagine this has increased since.

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Simon McIntyre Comments
The Cross
The Cross

The Cross of Christ has been made many things, but ultimately it is only one thing. To most, it is a finely crafted adornment on a chain, to be hung around our necks; it is romanticised. It has become a symbol of Christianity and its founder – Jesus Christ. It is found on flags – many European countries have it embedded on their national flags. And it is now illegal to wear in places of employment in France, due to its aggressively secularized vision of the state. The Cross is many things.

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Simon McIntyre Comments
 Un-Masked
 Un-Masked

People are facing off about masks. Every man and his dog (I saw a dog sporting a mask recently) has an opinion. To wear or not to wear, that is the question? Naturally every opinion is scientifically validated, they all insist in contradiction to one another.

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Simon McIntyre Comments
Reach for the Stars
Reach for the Stars

We, the human race, have decided it is our destiny, nay, our necessity, to reach for the stars. We are going to populate the Moon, and then, hopefully, Mars. We hope to understand more about our (inter) stellar origins, take our skills and curiosity to far flung worlds, and ease the pressure on Earth’s burgeoning population. All very progressive, and in measure, an exciting prospect.

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Simon McIntyre Comment
Freedom 
Freedom 

William Wallace made it all look so straight forward, however, freedom is notoriously difficult to define because it can mean something different in any given situation. To one person it is the right to freedom of speech, to another the right to move and act without unlawful restraint (even here it depends on who is making the laws), and to another the right to be free of oppression and injustice. Whichever way we view it, freedom does have the common thread of not being constrained from the ability to move, act, and speak.

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Simon McIntyre Comments
The Doctrine of Wine
The Doctrine of Wine

The drinking of wine can, not inevitably though, lead to strange behavior, and equally not drinking wine can lead some to strange conclusions. And I’m not sure which is worst – a headache or forced exegesis? One goes away in the morning but the other stays all day, all life-long. One is certainly regrettable, the other rarely repented from.

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Simon McIntyre Comments
A Case for Gravity
A Case for Gravity

By a case for gravity I don’t mean, what goes up must come down. What I refer to is a case for dignity, for solemnity, because it appears that we have all but lost the capacity, or even the desire, to present with some sense of gravity – in our words, and our lives. I apply this to us, to God’s people, because who am I, who are we, to judge the world.

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Simon McIntyre Comments
Unpacking Psalm 19
Unpacking Psalm 19

Psalm 19 directs us to contemplate God’s majesty in creation and see him in the perfection of his law. But it also reminds us of the all too human creatures we are, and our need for a redeemer, one who knows, one who sees and saves.

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Simon McIntyreComment