by Andy Roland | May 29, 2023 | Pentecost
WHY DOES THE CHURCH IGNORE THE HOLY SPIRIT? From 1980 to 2000 the Church of England celebrated the feast of Pentecost by having a complete week of Bible readings on the Holy Spirit. But in 2000 the new service book, ‘Common Worship’ abandoned that inspiring...
by Andy Roland | May 24, 2023 | Bible
INTRODUCTION It is a simple fact that all through Christian history people have experienced a spiritual change of heart, bringing a new vitality to their lives, coming through conversion and mystical experience. Here is a famous example. ‘In the...
by Andy Roland | May 3, 2023 | Newsletter, writing
APRIL 2023 Me at the Hole WRITING I did two pieces of writing this month, both of them quite intense. The first was my blog on Good and Evil, part of the chapter ‘What’s the Problem’ in my future book “The Church has a Past – Has it got a Future?’....
by Andy Roland | Apr 26, 2023 | Religion, Science
How is it that human beings can be both amazingly kind and altruistic, and can also inflict brutal violence? Are we actually composed of two different species? What drives us in such different directions? THE WISE AND THE WICKED The Bible is quite...
by Andy Roland | Apr 5, 2023 | Bible, Holy Week, Jesus
A BIG QUESTION To people in the ancient world, Jesus died simply because he was a troublemaker and a bad Jew (a glutton and a drunkard – Luke 7.34). For Jews his death was a stumbling block to any attempt to take him seriously; to Gentiles his death was...
