Living Christian: responding to things our non-religious friends say

 

In this first article exploring the challenges of living our Christian faith today, I want to look at the things our non-religious friends say.

My challenge to Christians this year is this: have a holy and thoroughly worldly Christmas

A post in one of the Christian Facebook groups I belong to really got my back up this week. It read thus: “Jesus gave us Good Friday. The world gives us Black Friday. Take your pick!” That quote could easily be substituted with these words: “The Bible gives us the Christ child. The world gives us Santa. Take your pick!”

We can't keep pretending that acts of terror are nothing to do with Islam

“Nothing to do with Islam.” These are words you can reliably expect to hear time and time again after every terrorist atrocity, be it in Paris, Brussels or Westminster. When the flurry of social media outrage dies down, we will look to understand and rationalise the situation, trying to work out what drove somebody like 52-year-old Khalid Masood to drive a car over a bridge, killing and wounding innocent people and causing devastation in a mere 82 seconds.

I'm a thoroughly modern brand of old-fashioned

Originally written for, and published on Dear Cupid – the free advice site.

I was particularly amused by a recent comment about my views. I was described as living in “the 1950s,” which I found highly amusing. But when I’d had my chuckle, I got to thinking: what would it be like to be stuck in the 50s? How does the experience of my generation compare to that of my grandparents’? Have things got better or worse, easier or harder?