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Do Muslims and Christians Worship the Same God?

Cover Art and Endorsements Announced

It’s only a few weeks until the launch of my new book, Do Muslims and Christians Worship the Same God? and I thought you might like to see the cover art. I’m thrilled with some of the kind and generous comments from folks who endorsed the book. (Click the image to see a larger version, if you wish).

Do Muslims and Christians Worship the Same God? is being published on 18 March in the UK (available a few weeks later in the USA/Canada). It’ll be available in paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats as well.

If you’d like to get your hands on a signed copy of the book before it is officially published then sign up for the Solas email list (the organisation I lead in the UK) and we’ll be letting folks know very soon how to get hold of a copy earlier than the rest of the world!

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A Year of Reading

One of my new year traditions is to look back at what I read in the last year — my goal was to read 30 books in 2020 and one impact of COVID/lockdown was that I managed to read (re-read in some cases) 51! An eclectic mix in here … (I’m kicking off 2021 by re-reading the The Lord of the Rings) …
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How to Avoid Being a Village Atheist

It is never a good idea to try to set fire to your shorts whilst wearing them, I thought to myself, as Darren departed the football field shrieking, white smoke trailing behind him. During my high school years, Darren was the class idiot. (I think he’d been aiming at class joker but had missed, badly: as somebody once remarked, many people who attempt to be a wit only make it halfway). Darren was always ready to interrupt a class with a stupid remark or snide heckle, was often in trouble because of pranks or stupid stunts gone wrong, and was the first person I ever saw wounded off a sports field with scorch marks.

Every community has its brilliant members, its leading lights and all have their single-watt flickering light bulbs, their village idiots. This goes for every community, not least the atheist and secular community.

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Lost and Found: The Story of John Newton

A sample from 'Heroes: Five Leaders From Whose Lives We Can Learn'

What follows is a sample first chapter of my book, Heroes: Five Leaders From Whose Lives We Can Learn.

If you enjoyed it, please do consider buying the full book, which is available as an ebook through Amazon.

In the full book, you can also read the stories of William Wilberforce, C. S. Lewis, Lesslie Newbigin, and Tim Keller.

The date was 10 March 1748; the location was the Atlantic ocean. The winds that had been building for days had finally exploded with violent ferocity and in the midst of a crashing gale with waves as tall as buildings, a wooden merchant ship called The Greyhound was struggling to stay afloat. The storm had already wrecked huge sections of the ship, even punching a hole in its side. As flood waters raced through the breach, crew members worked feverishly to patch the hole whilst others desperately manned the pumps. Some unfortunates screamed in terror as they were swept overboard, along with much of the provisions. The end looked near and it was surely just a matter of time before the ship was consumed by a hungry sea. But for one man in particular, this storm was to prove even more significant, for it would mark a radical and dramatic turning point in his life. That man was John Newton.

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Why Do Christians Believe That Jesus Was God?

Many people think that Jesus of Nazareth was just a good man, a wise teacher of morals, or even a prophet. But Christians go further, claiming he was God’s own son, stepping into space and time to show us what God was really like. Why do Christians believe this? What’s the evidence that Jesus was more than just another religious teacher? In this packed episode of Short Answers, we tackle arguably the most important question of all: who exactly was Jesus? (If you enjoy this Short Answers video, there are dozens more in the series covering almost every conceivable question).

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All Nature Sings: God and the Natural World

In July 2019, Andy Bannister was one of the keynote speakers at the RZIM Canada Summit, All Nature Sings: God and the Natural World. In the video below, you can watch Andy’s opening talk, exploring why the environment is a key apologetic topic that Christians need to think about—and a natural (pardon the pun) way to open up evangelistic conversations.

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Why is Religion So Divisive?

A recent survey revealed that many people harbour incredible negative attitudes to religion: 46% of those surveyed said that “religion is a major part of the problem in our world” whilst 42% think it’s not religion per se but “people of faith” who are the problem.

Why are people so down on religion? Why do so many imagine with John Lennon that a world “without religion” would be more peaceful, more tolerant, more inclusive and more harmonious? What’s the problem with religion?

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Miracles in an Age of Science

We live in an age that’s very sceptical about miracles. A culture that shouts at us through the media and a myriad other channels that science can explain everything and that to believe in the miraculous is positively medieval. There’s no such thing as the supernatural, we’re told, just the natural—a universe where the naturalistic laws of physics, chemistry and biology can explain everything.

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The End of Tolerance

In Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency, the detective-ghost-horror-who-dunnit-time-travel-romantic-musical-comedy-epic by the British comedy writer Douglas Adams, the eponymous private investigator, Dirk Gently, has had a major falling out with his secretary, Janice, who is preparing to storm out of the office in a rage:

She retrieved her last pot of nail varnish and tried to slam the drawer shut. A fat dictionary sitting upright in the drawer prevented it from closing. She tried to slam the drawer again, without success. She picked up the book, ripped out a clump of pages and replaced it. This time she was able to slam the drawer with ease.[1]

A few days later, faced with a client to whom some events have occurred that are, quite literally, completely and utterly impossible, Dirk happily remarks:

“Luckily, you have come to exactly the right place with your interesting problem, for there is no such word as ‘impossible’ in my dictionary. In fact,” he added, brandishing the abused book, “everything between ‘herring’ and ‘marmalade’ appears to be missing.”[2]

If I could remove just one word from the dictionary it wouldn’t be ‘impossible’, nor ‘pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanokoniosis’ and especially not ‘marmalade’, living as I do in Dundee.[3] No, if I could remove just one word from the dictionary, it would be the word ‘tolerance’.

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Is Christianity Just a Psychological Crutch?

A friend once caught a taxi one Sunday morning after church. Seeing her Bible, the driver sneered dismissively. “Religion is just a psychological crutch,” he opined, “something for weak-minded people who lack the self-reliance to take responsibility for their own lives. People believe in God because it makes them feel good.” Realising he’d probably blown any chance of a tip, he attempted to recover with: “What’s a nice girl like you need religion for anyway?”

Psychology is everywhere. We’re told psychology can explain everything from what we do in the bedroom to our religious preferences: psychology can explain sects as well as sex. The claim is not a new one, however: it goes back to Sigmund Freud (d. 1939), the father of psychoanalysis. Freud believed religion arises when we project our fears into the sky (especially the fear of death) and invent God to give us comfort in the face of our mortality.