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Social Cohesion, Populism, and the Church's Prophetic Role in the State

  Introduction The year 2024 saw a record number of elections throughout the world as over 60 countries voted in governments. [1]   Two related topics discussed during the year were populism in response to existing governments and the problem of social cohesion.  This essay explores these topics in regard to the place of Christians in society. Populism One of the interesting topics in focus was, and continues to be, the opposition of people and movements over against established governments and controlling elites.  Populism arises for various reasons.  One reason is a government that disregards the people it governs .  This also happens with regard to other institutions: the administration grows apart from and does not feel responsible to the people for whom it exists.  People become wary of institutions and might even doubt their legitimacy.  This can lead to a popular revolution.  Officials given power wish to preserve it and are tempted to...
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James Talarico’s Confused Claims about Christian Convictions, and Europe’s Trans-Society

  Texas Democrat candidate for the senate, James Talarico, has ventured into theological territory meant to challenge orthodox views about God and human sexuality. [1]   Trying to challenge the Christian understanding of gender and sexuality, he alleged that God is ‘nonbinary’.   Clarifying his comment, he averred that God is ‘beyond gender’.   These are contradictory claims. To suggest that God is nonbinary is to locate Him in the created order.  When people claim to be ‘nonbinary’, they are making a claim about their sexuality.  Sex, as we should know but also can see from Genesis 1.26ff, has to do with procreation and multiplying the species on the earth.  Those claiming to be nonbinary are claiming sexuality, whatever ‘nonbinary’ sexual identity means to them. Talarico’s second statement is correct: God is beyond gender.  This is because He is beyond the created order.  God is not both male and female.  He has no sexual identity....
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Five Tasks for Preaching

  Preaching, I would say, needs to accomplish five tasks. First, preaching must make disciples of us all.   It must be Biblical interpretation.   It is about explaining what the passage meant in its context and how this message speaks authoritatively to us today.   The minister and the congregation sit under the authority of God’s Word.   We dare not distort it through ignorance or our own imaginations or desires.   The posture of good listeners is to sit quietly, hear, and honour the Bible’s message.   Listening to it interpreted leads us back to read it for ourselves. The Jews who listened to Paul in Berea ‘received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so’ (Acts 17.11).   Preaching is not about a preacher encapsulating the big idea of a passage and repackaging it in some more easily grasped form, as enticing as this might be, for to do so is to reduce it to some chosen part, like the child wh...
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