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.
At the Party
It happens at social gatherings. First, the (almost) inevitable question: And what do you do for a living? Next, the deep breath followed by the fatal confession: Actually, I’m a Christian Minister, yes, a clergyman, one of those. The reaction varies but quite...
UNDERSTANDING THE TIMES?
Even though I am not a prophet or the son of a prophet (to quote from Amos 7), nor am I like one of the sons of Issachar, who understood the times and knew what the people of God should do in perilous circumstances (I Chronicles 12), I am a committed follower of Jesus...
Emergency Food and the Cost of Living: Moving from Provision to the Prophetic
Since the Covid-19 pandemic hit, more people than ever have experienced destitution, unable to afford the essentials, such as food and shelter, that we all need to survive. There are now providers of emergency food in most cities, towns and villages across Northern Ireland, where food bank use is now 40% higher than pre-pandemic levels in 2019.
One Easter story but there aren’t two Jesus-es
When my children were small, two types of toys dominated all others in our home: Lego and Play Mobil. Over the years, what seemed like endless and assorted offerings from each brand came into the house. There were firefighters, hospitals and police officers, both Lego...
Living….in the face of evil
Day after day, night after night cities in Ukraine are being bombed on a huge scale, and are enveloped in distress. And, we are able to watch it in terrible colour on our TV screens, and able to read heart-rending accounts of what is happening to individuals,...
To Live is to Change
In 1845, John Henry Newman, one time Anglican Priest and later Roman Catholic Cardinal wrote ‘To live is to change’. His comments described both the world as he observed it, and life, as he experienced it. Change is all around us in Ireland today. Finton O’Toole gives...
Beyond and Between
Something shifted inside me when I became a dad. I could not put my finger on it until someone offered that to be a parent is forever to have a piece of your heart running around in the world outside of yourself. Little human beings, complete in and of the full span...
Food and soil – reconnecting with our food
The earth is running out of harvests, there may be only about 60 years left according to some experts[1]. There are many detractors from this view but, as with climate change and Covid vaccinations, the reasons for concern are many and varied. Let us look at how...
Harming Free Speech?
As Christians we instinctively want to defend the human right to free speech, because it encapsulates our right to worship God, proclaim the Gospel and explain the practice of our faith. Fortunately in the UK the legal framework and the political consensus is to...
We don’t know ourselves!
One of my Christmas presents in 2021 was Fintan O’Toole’s new book, “We don't know ourselves, a personal history of Ireland since 1958”. Being quarantined in the house for a week, I confess I devoured the book quicker than the Christmas cake. O’Toole, born in 1958, is...
Who is my neighbour?
Following the St. Patrick’s Day joint statement by the Church Leaders’ Group (Ireland) last year, in which they personally lamented their lack of leadership in building a better quality of peace, I did some academic research as a Christian to explore how the Churches...
Praying beyond ourselves and our shores
After retiring in 2017 from ministry in Presbyterian churches in the Republic, we moved north and engaged in a bit of “church tasting”. Although there was a friendly welcome everywhere and faithful biblical preaching, I was dissatisfied with the prayers for others,...