P.S.
PS is an email and web-based blog format issued regularly by Contemporary Christianity. The format provides an online space for writers toexplore issues relating to church, culture and life in Northern Ireland, seeking to understand the times through insights from Scripture, theology, reason and the observations that flow from lived experience.
PS will never claim to have all the answers, but we hope to prompt questions that leave our readers a little closer to the answer at the end of the piece than they were at the beginning.
Our writers range from well-known names in academia and full-time ministry, to professionals with particular subject matter expertise, to lay people with passion for a subject and a gift for writing.
You can get involved in conversations by posting comments in the threads below the blogs, and if you’re interested in writing for us, you can get in touch by emailing info@contemporarychristianity.net.
Finding Elpis
As I mentioned in my last blog, in retirement I have been writing the history of my previous congregation, First Presbyterian Church, Armagh.
4th July 2024 – Election Day in the UK
With Election Day imminent, you and I will have to assess the promises that have been made, the manifestos published and the interviews given.
It is time to say HELLO!
It is interesting how unusual or exceptional circumstances can make one acutely aware of things previously taken for granted. The Covid pandemic made us all much more aware of the importance of relationships, or, as we now refer to them, social connections.
Remembering Aleksei Navalny
I spent some time looking at the BBC coverage of events surrounding the service in the Church of the Icon of Our Lady Quench My Sorrow, and then his burial in Borisovskoye Cemetery.
Cultural Violence: A tribute to Johan Galtung
The recent passing of Johan Galtung* leaves the field of Peace Studies without one of its founding giants. His work was about understanding violence and building positive peace; a society in which all people can flourish. This is in contrast to negative peace, which is simply the absence of direct violence.
I felt privileged to have been a witness
For those seeking to find a path of understanding through the burgeoning body of literature exploring our troubled past Mallie offers both a reliable and trustworthy guide. He writes as one who was there. “I felt privileged” he writes, “to have been a witness.”
Our First Love
The gospel injunction to “love our enemies” and “pray for those who persecute us” sits uneasily with modern sensibilities.
Earbuds, air pods or the sound of silence?
Ask most people what the most significant technical innovation has been in the history of Christendom, and I would confidently guess that most would say it is the printing press… Another technical innovation that is shaping God’s people, is much more recent: podcasting.
Conflicted Ministry
It is now more than a year and a half since I retired from full time ministry in First Armagh Presbyterian Church.
‘A friend loves at all times?’
Maybe I am just more conscious of it than before, but I sense that there is an increasing amount of pain and distress in people’s lives – both for younger people as well as for those of us who are older. This is causing me to think a lot more deeply about some of the issues around building and maintaining good friendships.
The Story of Christmas and the Everyday Ordinary
The Christmas story is a story set in the context of a census. Luke locates the birth narrative of Jesus in familiar words: ‘In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world.’
Treating All With Special Honour
I am right handed. I use my right hand to write, occasionally to play tennis, golf or cricket, but most especially to drink coffee. Until recently, I assumed I only used my left hand to lean on. Then on 1st May, I had a stroke.