In my last blog I took a modest line about claims for the divinity of Jesus. In this blog I turn to what Jesus accomplished, and here I take a stronger line. In both cases I believe I am following the New Testament, which is much stronger about the ‘work’…
Was Jesus God?
The claim made by Christians that Jesus was God has become problematic for many people, and deters many people who might otherwise think of themselves as Christians. I think Christians have become over-dogmatic about what Christians have to believe about Jesus, in a way that has become an obstacle to…
Why Religion is Good for your Health?
Religious people tend to be healthier than non-religious people, and live longer. The evidence for that is beyond dispute, though it is only a trend, and there can be exceptions. In this blog I want to explore why religious people are healthier. It is tempting to assume that religion actually…
A Psychologist’s Approach to God as Trinity
Next Sunday is ‘Trinity Sunday’. I want to continue my recent blogs that have taken a psychologist’s approach to occasions in the Christian year, and take a psychologist’s look at the Trinity. At first glance the Trinity may seem unpromising ground for a psychologist, but there are two aspects to…
Is the Ascension of Jesus Scientifically Credible?
One of the major festivals of the Christian year falls on Thursday this week, the Ascension of Jesus, 40 days after Easter. When I was a boy it was still a significant occasion, but it has lost ground badly in the last half century. On the face of things, the…
Why We Should Stop Talking about ‘Religion’
I get increasingly impatient with the way people talk about ‘religion’, as though all religion was essentially the same. It is such a broad category, and different forms of religion are so different from one another, that it really makes no sense to talk about ‘religion’ at all. Religion seems…
A Psychologist’s Perspective on Church Services
The days when people went to church services out of duty are almost gone. We live in a consumerist age when people always ask ‘what am I going to get out of this?’ If something seems boring and pointless, they don’t do it. Most people don’t get anything out of…
Photosynthesis and the Death of Jesus
Christians have always believed that the death of Jesus had far-reaching consequences, and have tried various ways of explaining how that was achieved. Modern science provides a rich sources of ideas that can be used alongside more traditional theories. I want to suggest here that photosynthesis provides a helpful metaphor…
Trends in Religious and Spiritual Beliefs
On Palm Sunday the BBC news included results from an interesting new survey of religious attitudes and beliefs, analysed by Professor David Voas. There are several very interesting aspects of the findings. One is that there seems to be a growing divergence between spiritual and religious beliefs. Over 20% of…
What Kind of Christian?
Christians are vastly different from one another. That is one of the issues I had to grapple with in my latest book, Psychology, Religion and Spirituality (published this month by Cambridge University Press). You can’t just lump different kinds of Christians together, because the data is then so ‘noisy’ that…