Category Archives: Uncategorized

I cannot begin to explain how certain conservative evangelical churches in England are feeling right now. Victims and survivors are hurting, congregations are swirling, statements are confusing and triggering. I’m sick of the betrayal, and many of us are in different kinds of pain. But I can tell you a story.  It’s a story fromContinue reading “Hope Against Hope (4): Following Jesus when it feels like we have lost everything”

Centuries ago criminals and slaves were branded by a hot iron and the mark left was referred to as the stigma. It was a permanent, visible sign of disgrace, enslaving someone, or reducing someone to a failing from the past. It rendered them irredeemable. Today stigma takes on a different form, but its power toContinue reading “Hope Against Hope (3): What does Jesus know about stigma?”

A few years ago, a photo of a wolf pack went viral. The caption claimed that the first three were old and sick, the stronger ones were in the middle and the alpha was in the back. People loved the idea that the pack slowed down to the pace of the older ones, and thatContinue reading “Hope Against Hope (2): Following Jesus when we are stigmatised”

There is a weed in my front garden. I pull it up but after a few months, there it is again. Depression for me is like that weed. I became a Christian 25 years ago, and like many Christians, I couldn’t believe that anyone who knew the significance of the good news could also knowContinue reading “Hope against hope (1): Following Jesus when we’re depressed”