Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 12026 Preferred pronouns have turned an ordinary part of speech into a test of allegiance, and believers are being asked to take that test at work, at university and increasingly in the family. It is a small word with a great deal loaded onto it, which is exactly why it is difficult. I want…
Reading Time: 9 minutesQuestion 12019 Transgender identity is not really a question about pronouns, bathrooms or sport, though those are where the arguments usually happen. It is a question about what a human being is, and whether the body has anything authoritative to say about that. Everything else follows from the answer. I want to handle this at…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 08110. Whether martial arts are spiritually dangerous depends almost entirely on which martial arts you mean and who is teaching them, which is why a blanket answer will always be wrong for somebody. The category covers everything from an Olympic combat sport to a discipline that opens with meditation before a shrine. So rather…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 08109. Whether yoga practice is spiritually dangerous is a question that divides thoughtful Christians, and I want to handle it in a way that respects both sides rather than declaring one of them unspiritual. I have friends who would not set foot in a class and friends who go every Tuesday, and both can…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 08108. The question of whether Eastern meditation can open doors to demons needs a definition before it needs an answer, because the word meditation is now doing duty for at least three unrelated activities and people talking about it are frequently talking past each other. There is biblical meditation, which Scripture commands. There is…
Reading Time: 9 minutesQuestion 1100. Social justice is a phrase that can mean almost anything depending on who is using it, and I think that ambiguity is exactly why the question deserves careful unpacking rather than a reflexive yes or no. Scripture has an enormous amount to say about justice, about the poor, the widow, the orphan and…
Reading Time: 9 minutesQuestion 1099. Gender ideology is one of the most pastorally sensitive subjects I address, because behind every abstract question sits a real person, often someone genuinely struggling, sometimes a parent frightened for a child, sometimes a young person in real distress. I want to answer carefully and with compassion, because Scripture never lets truth and…
Reading Time: 9 minutesQuestion 1098. Critical race theory has become one of the most contested phrases in public conversation, and church members ask me about it often enough that I want to address it directly rather than duck the question because it feels politically charged. Critical race theory is an academic framework, originating in legal scholarship in the…
Reading Time: 9 minutesQuestion 1097. Woke interpretations of Scripture have become common enough in recent years that I think every believer needs some tools for recognising them, not so we can win arguments online but so we can guard the actual meaning of the text we love. What I mean by the phrase is a pattern of reading…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 1096. Bible movies and dramatic readings have exploded in popularity over the last few years, and I get asked about them often enough that I think the question deserves a proper answer rather than a shrug from the pulpit. Series like The Chosen have brought Jesus and the disciples into millions of living rooms…