Think Question Believe

It was a widespread belief of Jesus’ time that suffering and misfortune were a sign of God’s displeasure and punishment, that they were somehow earned and deserved. Let’s be frank, we can even fall prey to the same superstitious beliefs today, where adversity and affliction can all too easily be labelled as the consequences of such phrases as ‘poor choices’ or ‘unhealthy lifestyle’ – at least by t...

Christians are called upon to be honest with God, and most of all honest with ourselves. We are called to account, to face what needs to be faced, to confront that which we have avoided and from which we shrink. To show humility, acceptance of the errors we have made, the sins we have committed, the debts that we owe. The feast of St Patrick is a day on which the thoughts of many turn to Ireland,...

Dictators and brutes throughout history have somehow convinced themselves that their violence and inhumanity will secure them power. That fear and intimidation, the force of arms will win the day. And all too sadly there seem to be no end of those who are willing to be their creatures. Today we see the willing capitulation and self-subjugation of those who so want to be in positions of supposed po...

War and violence have always been with us, despite our experience of some decades of comparative peace, we have always been beset by the storms of life. And sadly today, black clouds of intolerance, bitterness, greed and indifference to the suffering of others are gathering and deepening. And an ominous warning sign, like the outbreak of bush fires all around us is the slow death of truth. No soci...

We live in a world, both in terms of income and social and political power where inequality has been on the rise across the globe for several decades. We lionize the bullies, the liars, the psychopathic and the heartless. We seem prepared to place our trust in those who lack compassion, who are devoid of a consistent moral compass, and who have only the most tenuous grasp on the truth, that they v...

We are living through the rise of heartless authoritarianism across the world, itself borne out of and sustained by fear; the seeming destruction of a sense of integrity, public truth and reason before our very eyes, daily on our screens and in our newspapers. When an immensely rich US president cancels charitable aid to the poorest and most vulnerable in the world, suggests ethnic cleansing as a...

Sometimes the most significant moments, the greatest trials of our lives are only understood in hindsight.  As the Danish Philosopher and Theologian, Soren Kirkegaard once said: “Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards”.  That is the human condition. We should all seek to take time to look back, to reflect on the journey, this pilgrimage of life that has brought us thi...

In the Western church, to a large part through the influence of Augustine, his genius, but also his own disabling guilt and shame, we have been bequeathed a view of salvation as the remission of punishment, by a stern and judicial God, being spared abandonment and damnation that otherwise would be ours. We might call this ‘Salvation from’, - salvation from hell, salvation from retribution, salvati...

The American moral, legal and political philosopher John Rawls devised a concept called the 'Veil of Ignorance'. A challenge to all those who might like to define what the ideal society should be. Devise away, he said, but first, you need to assume that you have no way of knowing where in that society you might be placed; would you be male or female, gay, trans or heterosexual; would you be male o...

Every year we seem to start sooner. Shops, cafés, pubs and public buildings are already decked out with Christmas decorations, the sound of Christmas tunes carries across their sound systems. And it is not even December. But in the rush to savour its delights way, way before time, we miss out on something profoundly important – something we need, if only we were wise enough to recognise it. Advent...

There is a human tendency to only look for information that confirms what we already believe, and to reject, ignore, or even just not notice anything that is a challenge to our mindset. It’s called ‘confirmation bias’. We look for confirmation, that we are right. And if we receive a message that is a challenge or a contradiction, then it might not get through at all, Or, it will become so altered...

In the story of the feeding of the five thousand we need to look beyond the confines of conventional interpretations, beyond the banal limitations of time and place, and seek instead what are timeless, eternal truths. The gospel writers each use the same story to achieve different ends with different listeners in different Christian communities. We might therefore ask ourselves, with such a vastly...

Is there a tendency, within the church, to revert to the Pharisee, to retreat into rules and constraints and the sanctuary of the few, the exclusive club, that cares more for law than the suffering of humanity? Do we allow the practice of our religion to smother and obscure with rules and regulations and prejudices of the past that which should be simple and uplifting and liberating? We must ask o...

‘Now we see through a glass darkly’ said the Apostle Paul, for both our ability to understand, and the lenses through which we look are compromised, each in their own way. We might regard both the Bible and the church/churches, not as divinely perfect ordinations, divine products, but as the earnest attempt of humanity to witness to and express their experience and understanding of the divine real...

Donald Woods Winnicott who died in 1971 was an English paediatrician and psychoanalyst who was especially influential in the field of developmental psychology. He is best known for his ideas on the true self and the false self. In the 1980s the psychologist Richard Schwartz developed the concept that the mind is made up of different discrete subpersonalities, each with its own unique viewpoint and...

Let’s be honest, no one takes the whole Bible literally, no one. Otherwise, they would already be in prison for murder or a fugitive from the law. We are all selective, and rightly so, in our reading of scripture. We no longer practice, support or condone slavery, prejudice against the disabled (at least in part) and the silencing and marginalisation of women in the Church (again at least to some...

Throughout the Gospel of John “the Jews” are presented as hostile to Jesus and to all who assert that he is the Christ. They are said to plot against him, to convince Pilate to execute him; even after his crucifixion they are said to oppose Pilate placing the sign ‘King of the Jews’; supposedly the disciples hid for fear of “the Jews”. In the past this has led to some terrible misunderstandings an...

It can be pleasing when you find a meeting of minds, as it were, between science and religion, after all, there is no need for them to be at odds, and at best they can act as a corrective and a refiner, one to the other. Religion can humanize science, can bring to it ethical and spiritual insights that otherwise it might lack. Science can bring to religion the challenge of intellectual rigour – ot...

J. John, the famous preacher speaks of how he was once asked at a funeral “Did your uncle leave much?” he replied “O yes - he left everything”. He also said that the problem of the rat race is, even if you win, you are still a rat. If you can’t take it with you, and you will never have enough - then the rat race itself better be fun - and I wonder if it is and for how many? Sadly, we have bought t...

Anyone who has held their newborn child in their arms knows that time, when nothing else is of any account,  when the miracle of new life is our total focus, when we become aware of the awesome continuity of it all. As any parent knows the journey through the pregnancy is one of hope, joy, worry, optimism, struggle, expectation and fear. In a way the birth becomes such a focal point that we can’t...

In the Gospels the writers report that Jesus warns of the times to come, of the apocalypse that his listeners should expect. The fact that the apocalypse didn’t happen as they felt Jesus had foretold, should not blind us to the truth that for them, at the time, it truly felt like the end. After the sacking of the city and Temple in AD70 Jerusalem was never the same again, the Jewish faith and the...

This interview was originally broadcast in February 2022 on Radio Dublin South. The Revd Kevin O'Brien (Rector of Drumcliffe Union of Churches with Kilnasoolagh in County Clare was speaking with Revd Martin O'Connor). The interview has been edited to remove an autobiographical introduction and also copyrighted music.

There is a critical question that I believe every honest Christian should ask themselves - one that all too often we either skate over and ignore, or simply don’t understand, but the answer to which has profound implications for what we believe and how we practice the Christian faith ... Do you believe in the ‘Fall’?

As a parish priest, first in England and now in Co. Clare, Ireland, whenever someone says to me ‘I don’t believe in God’ generally the first question I ask is “Define the God you don’t believe in’ and the second is ‘What do you mean by the word ‘believe’”? Because all too often we use these words as if there is one agreed definition as to what they mean, but, in reality, we can all mean something...