I recently read a fabulous article reflecting on lament and hope in a COVID-19 world. Cathy Ross draws on the books of Lamentations and 1 Peter to wrestle with how voicing pain can be a path to healing. This means that lament can actually be a way of keeping hope […]
Since we started on self-isolation, our family has been reading a Psalm each night over dinner (sort of – we’ve been on iso about 60 days, but we’re only up to Psalm 40!) Our kids have heard ancient Israel’s songs praising God and also ones crying out to God in […]
A while ago, I floated a theory about the emotional life of Tanzanians. It went something like this: the hierarchical nature of society in Tanzania means people do not get practice at identifying and expressing their emotions, because they are expected to repress them and obey those who are over […]
Reading Anastasia Boniface-Malle’s thesis about the absence of lament in Tanzanian Christianity exposed for me another plank in the theological foundations of prosperity theology, that is, the idea that God wants you to be happy and healthy, and that for the Christian this kind of victory is within your reach. A key […]
I spoke at the women’s retreat for our Melbourne church last weekend. The topic was ‘The Psalms and Emotional Life’. These talks are a little different from sermons at church, mainly owing to the fact that it’s a smaller crowd and the retreat atmosphere is more relaxed than a Sunday service. […]
When I reviewed Rid of My Disgrace, I mentioned that it genuinely confronts the question of where God is in sexual assault. This is different from the question of how God might work his purposes out despite or through it. It is instead the grieved cry of asking where God […]
