Reading Highlights from 2024
I missed the boat for TGCA’s Year-in-Books series this year (see last year’s picks here). Nevertheless, here are some of the books I enjoyed in 2024. Fiction My two favourite fiction books this year were warning-shots fired from slightly different political trajectories. In Prophet Song, Paul Lynch’s protagonist Eilish Stack—wife, mother and microbiologist—watches in eloquent horror as her native Ireland…
In a Bleak Midsummer
As you, God born of God long ago, Son of the true Father, eternally existed without beginning in the glory of heaven, so your own creation cries with confidence to you now for their needs, that you send that bright sun to us, and come yourself to lighten those who long have lived surrounded by shadows and darkness, here in…
God in the Flesh: Incarnation Reflections
Last week, I had the great privilege of participating with Mark Thompson and Charles Cleworth in EV Church’s third theology seminar on the Incarnation. We had a good discussion and the staff and visitors asked us excellent questions. I will provide a link to media from the even as it becomes available. But in the meantime, I thought it might…
Ghost Stories and the Eye of Faith
I like a spooky story. I like (plausible) spooky stories because they disrupt the arrogant certainties of scientific materialism and fit with the ornate cosmos I see revealed in the Bible: a world of angels and demons and spiritual powers and unclean spirits (whatever they are). I like the idea that there is a hidden world that still reveals itself…
Whales & Angels
Jen’s mum went to be with her Lord and Saviour a few weeks ago. It was a tough time. We made it through the funeral, and afterward, we took a week to recuperate in Merimbula. Merimbula is a coastal town just over the New South Wales border. It’s a beautiful place, one we’ve returned to many times over the years…
Review: Mania by Lionel Shriver
(Contains spoilers for Lionel Shriver’s novel Mania) Cognitive discrimination has been outlawed in the America of Lionel Shriver’s novel Mania (2024). Nobody is stupid, everyone’s brain is equal; the country is falling apart. Mania opens with Pearson Converse, the story’s protagonist, being summoned to remove her son from school after he used the “D-word” about the slogan on another child’s…
On Christ’s Two Wills: Responding to William Lane Craig
A couple of weeks ago the renowned Christian apologist and philosopher, William Lane Craig caused a small flurry on the internet by declaring his rejection of the orthodox doctrine of the two wills of Christ (dyothelitism), and his preference for another Christological aberration known as Apollinarianism. I have a great deal of respect for Dr Craig and often enjoy listening…
An Easter Easter Egg
I like a good Easter egg. Not a chocolate egg—I mean a secret meaning or symbol buried in a film or game or story. I included a whole bunch of them in The Blood Miles and had a lot of fun doing it. The Bible Is Chock Full of Easter Eggs The Bible is chock full of Easter eggs too. Alongside the explicit…
The Storied World: Impassibility, Incarnation & Virtual Reality
In recent months, I have been thinking and writing about the significance of stories, divine impassibility and the incarnation. Here is a post to draw some of those threads together in the light of our Christmas hope. Some of this is an adaptation of a paper I gave up at EV church earlier this month. Here’s an odd truth to…
Introducing The Blood Miles
‘The Blood Miles’ is about how it feels to live in a world that is at war with its true Ruler. It is about pressing on when progress seems slow, when failures abound, and when help seems so far away.
