Category Archives: Uncategorized

The Second Discourseman 4th September, 2022 Today I visited a new church, and decided that I would call it home. I hinted this to some of the people I spoke to, but not in such personal terms. After all, to claim a place as home is presumptuous in the extreme. It is to demand thatContinue reading “A New Home”

The Second Discourseman I don’t think I had ever noticed moonlight until a couple of years ago. This is strange considering the part it played in so many stories of my childhood: poachers, smugglers, spies, all making their dubious ways under the silver gleam. But though we see the Moon, it is rare today forContinue reading “Going Moon-Hunting”

The Third Discourseman A bold title, I know. So to avoid unnecessary offense to my fellow Reformed brothers and sisters reading this blog, I want to stress that I believe in both justification by faith alone and penal substitution. Both are true and wonderful and vital to our salvation. This blog is not calling eitherContinue reading “Why Justification by Faith Is Not the Gospel (And nor Is Penal Substitution)”

I hear a lot of complaints about ‘the church’ these days. I’ve been guilty of them myself. Why don’t Christians give more money to the poor? Why is British Christianity so middle class? Why aren’t we preaching the gospel properly? Why all the abuse scandals?

The Second Discourseman In the dusk tonight, I sat in Chapel Court of Jesus College, my alma mater as of this day. I had just graduated a year after I had left, so that it was both a return and a farewell. Life played out across that court: couples walking together, students traipsing back andContinue reading “The Wicket Gate”

My uncle and aunt have a dog called Meg. I don’t know enough about dogs to be able to say if Meg is an odd dog, as in, odd as far as dogs go. But she seems odd to me: she gets easily hyped up and overexcited, she has an annoying (but sometimes funny) knackContinue reading “Lessons from Meg”

The Third Discourseman ‘The British love an underdog’ I don’t know whether this statement is actually true. Has there ever been any data or research (beyond anecdotal) to suggest that the British are more inclined towards the underdog than any other nationality? Is it even true that British people love an underdog more than anContinue reading “An Underdog God?”

The Second Discourseman The day Thou gavest, Lord, is ended,The darkness falls at Thy behest;To Thee our morning hymns ascended,Thy praise shall sanctify our rest. It is hard to pin down the feeling as I leave church into the Sunday evening’s darkness; a feeling which, though it presumably has its counterpart in all working folk,Continue reading “A Song for Sunday Evenings”

The Third Discourseman That’s right, you read the title correctly. No figure- no matter how beloved- is safe from this Discourseman’s hard-hitting journalism. And no figure has escaped deserved scrutiny more than Santa, everyone’s favourite festive fable. For those unfamiliar, Santa Clause is the fictional lead at the centre of a nexus of lies, globalContinue reading “Top 10 Reasons to Sack off Santa this Christmas”

The Second Discourseman ‘When I had done all that, I got him oats from the neighbouring bin; for the place knew me well, and I could always tend to my own beast when I came there. And as he ate his oats, I said to him: “Monster, my horse, is there any place on earthContinue reading “The Wisdom of Monster”