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.
PS…February festivals
Fasting and feasting holidays are the events in the Jewish calendar around which life is orientated. Many of these ‘festivals’ have their origin in the laws which God gave to the people of Israel after they left Egypt and were on their way to the Promised...
‘Fake news’
In my early years as a professional Geologist and a Christian, I was dismayed and puzzled by the defence of the literalist interpretation of Genesis 1 stating that scientists were in a conspiracy of deception. Why scientists might do this was never articulated, as the...
How many too questions are too many questions?
Like a good evangelical Christian, every morning my day starts with quiet time. The Lord’s prayer, then other prayers, setting my day up, giving it over to God. And from prayer I go to Scripture, helped in that discipline by Bible Reading notes. A verse or a question...
Every little helps
It’s November and I’m sad. Over the years I have come to dread November, because if anything goes wrong, it goes spectacularly wrong in November. Perhaps this was a self-fulfilling prophecy, perhaps it’s SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder), but it always seemed to...
Why the news needs to be good
The Queen rarely makes comment on matters of public debate, but a few weeks ago she gave a message of support to the British newspaper industry, praising traditional media outlets. She said that “having trusted, reliable sources of information, particularly at a time...
Christians in a Post COVID-19 World?
As we begin another period of lockdown with the number of cases of COVID-19 and the number of deaths rising relentlessly, people are losing hope. There is concern about the effects on employment, the economy and our individual freedoms. There have been positive...
Thinking about the colour of my skin
Galatians 3:28 is one of the better-known verses in the Bible: “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” Christians, rightly, rejoice at its liberating truth – all joined ‘in...
Back to the Future?
In Chapter 10 of St Matthew’s Gospel, we find the second of Jesus’ great sermons in that Gospel. He has picked his 12 apostles and he is sending them out with a set of instructions. What does he say to his missionaries then – and now? Firstly, Jesus says that they are...
PS: A Taboo Conversation??
Two statistics in the public domain are, each in their own way, startling. One, the mounting figure of Covid 19 deaths in the UK, now standing at over 45,000. The other, the number of abortions carried out in the UK in 2019 - over 209,000. The former gets daily media...
Desert Wisdom for the Lock-down
This PS is an adaptation of an article published by Belfast Bible College and is used with permission (https://www.facebook.com/BelfastBibleCollege/photos/a.250728314988600/2933919253336146/). In the late third century men and women chose the self-isolation of the...
THE CALL, THE HERO AND THE CHALLENGE
When Beethoven realised that he was going deaf and that there was little hope of a cure, despair called. He avoided this by casting himself as the hero who would not be deflected from fulfilling his true vocation. For Beethoven this was his art: his music. Although he...
PS…The Holy Discomfort of Being Church
May 2020 saw the release of Dr Gladys Ganiel’s report on a Survey of Church Leaders in Ireland During the Pandemic. It states that many churches have found their viewing figures for online services exceed the numbers of their ‘real-life’ congregations. Faith leaders...