The God of Prostitutes

I knew that God was in that brothel before I arrived, suffering with Maria, witnessing her defilement night after night and sharing in her tears, and that he would remain in the brothel long after I left

From God in a Brothel: An Undercover Journey into Sex Trafficking and Rescue by Daniel Walker. Indeed this is true for we worship a God who is truly afflicted by the pain and suffering of this world. The unbeliever's suffering may be purposeless but God is still grieved by it because He is present in their suffering, especially when it is through grotesque injustice. As Calvin rightly observed, the cry of those who suffer injustice is the cry of God. More importantly, I think God wants us to cry and weep with Him for the world. He is not satisfied with crying alone in the garden. He wants to draw us in and share His grief for the suffering prostitutes of the world, the enslaved, and countless victims. As Walker piercingly observes :

The worship lyrics of most modern churches are often inserted into a PowerPoint image depicting the beauty of nature or the majesty of the universe. How would our worship change if we used images of imprisoned slaves instead? What would happen if we stopped asking to see God in heaven and instead asked to see him in the eyes of prostituted children? What would happen if in the face of the very worst forms of depravity and evil in the world Christians walked in the knowledge that they are the dangerous ones and the ones to be feared?

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I Am Mother

I think it is true to say that the Netflix film I Am Mother is one the most disturbing movies I have watched for a long time. The film is set in a near future. Human life has been wiped out. An artificial intelligence (AI) called Mother is living inside a bunker where thousands of embroyos are stored. It selects an embryo and initiates a program to grow a baby within 24 hours. The AI then goes on to raise the child as its mother over the next few years. After 16 years, the girl, who now goes by the name of Daughter (Clara Rugaard) is a teenager. She has never been outside because Mother has told her that the air is toxic. Her time is spend being home schooled in science and ethics so that she can become a perfect human being. The bond between Daughter and Mother is unusually strong. To our surprise there does not appear to be any mental or pyschological trauma of having a machine as her mother. The strength of the bond between man and machine is tested when a nameless Woman (Hilary

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What is the best preparation for preaching?

The best preparation is not to be too anxious about it. Anxious care hinders liveliness and efficacy. It leads to too little dependence on the Spirit. Be not didactic. Aim at the conscience as soldiers aim at the faces. Consider I may be preaching my last sermon. This leads to setting forth Christ as The Way, the Truth and the Life . .. Make Christ the prominent figure…Pay less attention to dear self. JOHN NEWTON

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White Fragility, A Review

Robin DiAngelo has a sermon to preach. It is in form of a short popular book called White Fragilit y. Straight off the bat she tells us not to expect balanced analysis but a forceful argument “unapologetically rooted in identity politics”. She understands identity politics as “the [political] focus on the barriers specific groups face in their struggle for equality”. The group she wants to save is black people, whom she blankets under “people of colour”. So what is White Fragility about? DiAngelo is sick and tired of white racism in the western world, and specifically the USA. She believes every white person, including babies, are guilty of racism by virtue of being white. So she wants to use her “insider status” as a white American woman to challenge this white racism by getting her fellow “white progressives” to force forward her thesis. In her words, “I am white...and I am mainly writing to a white audience”. I was immediately tempted to put down the book because being black Afri

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