In this week’s Chalke Talk Steve responds to criticism that in his previous video, he oversimplified the message of Jesus. While Steve had claimed that the message of the Gospel is simply one of love, others have pointed out that Jesus was – on occasions – a man of anger.
Read MoreJesus knew the law as well as any boy who grew up in Jewish society – and by all accounts, far better than most. But what really made Jesus different was his ability to internalize the spirit of the law – and liberate himself from the letter of it.
Read More“Following Jesus isn’t about religion and all its paraphernalia; signing up to a system of doctrinal statements in the hope of escaping judgement after death – instead it’s about how to do life right now!”
Read MoreThe Apostle Paul is often written off as an anti-sex, anti-marriage, anti-women misery. But, when we take every word of Paul as universally applicable, we make a horrendous pastoral mistake. We end up imposing theological constructs on him which just aren’t there.
Read MoreThe Church has a responsibility to engage with and tackle the moral and spiritual issues of contemporary society. However, we can only do this when we tap into the timeless wisdom of scripture – and that requires understanding that the Bible does not have the final word on every moral issue.
Read More100 years on from the Representation of the People Act, which heralded the first concrete steps in the long process towards women’s suffrage in the UK, the Church has failed to learn the lessons of its historic, and doctrinally driven, social conservatism.
Read MoreWhen we walk into a library – even a specialist library on a particular subject – we expect the books present to have much in common with each other; but we would be highly surprised if they uniformly agreed on everything. The Bible, Steve argues in this week’s Chalke Talk, is a library and we should expect some disagreement between the books that constitute it.
Read MoreIrresponsible church leaders, who encourage a literal and juvenile interpretation of the Bible, are partly to blame for heightened mental illness and physical harm among LGBT people, argues Steve in this week's Chalke Talk.
Read MoreWhat do we mean when we call the Bible 'God-breathed'? To what extent can we ever call the Bible infallible?
2 Timothy 3:16 tells us that all scripture is God breathed and useful for teaching. But it never uses the word ‘infallible’. In the latest instalment of Chalke Talk, Steve argues that by labelling the Bible as infallible we have discouraged people from asking big questions about its content, from grappling with it in its entirety and understanding its true meaning.
Read MoreHow do we deal with contradictions in the Bible – occasions where one verse describes an event in a certain way and another verse talks about the same event completely differently?
Read MoreAn obsession with creation vs evolution has caused large parts of the Church to miss the true message of the creation story, says a prominent Christian leader. “In fact”, he explains, “here we are in the 21st century and most of the world has still not come to terms with Genesis’ radical message of inclusion and equality.”
Read MoreThe way we interpret the Bible is driving down church attendance, says Steve in this week’s ‘Chalke Talk.’
Off the back of new figures which show that the Church of England has lost two-thirds of its members in the last three decades, we need to ask questions about what it is that pushes people away.
Read More“Moses, a late bronze-age thinker, puts late bronze-age words into God’s mouth,” says Steve Chalke in the latest edition of Chalke Talk. “And the problem is that some of them stuck.”
Read MoreSome Christians, often with passion and pride, argue that the Bible does not need to be interpreted. Every word – every syllable – can be applied without thought and interpretation. This, Steve argues in the latest addition of Chalke Talk, is nonsense.
Read MoreMany Christians, Steve argues, are in the habit of picking and choosing which bits of the Bible to believe. If a part of it is uncomfortable, we tend to gloss over it.
Read MoreLuther was extraordinarily brave. Despite risking death, he had the courage of his convictions to speak out about the things that really mattered to him. Throughout history, many Christians have found the strength to do the same.
Read MoreThe church needs heretics and Jesus himself was seen as one, argues Steve in the 4th instalment of the Chalke Talk video series.
Read More“Bad theology costs lives” argues Steve in the third instalment of ‘Chalke Talk.’ From Luther and his persecution of the Jews, to the Church’s relatively recent poor treatment of unmarried mothers and divorced people, misunderstanding Scripture can lead to mental and physical wellbeing being seriously undermined.
Read MoreLuther asked the questions that the 16th century Church really needed to grapple with – and because of his courage the world changed forever. But none of this means that he didn’t make mistakes. Did his ‘two Kingdoms theology’ – which called for separation between Church and state lead to a world where Christians started to turn a blind eye to secular evil? Could this even have shaped a German Church which ailed to speak out against Nazism in the 1930s?
Read MoreOn the 500th anniversary since Martin Luther supposedly posted his Ninety-five Theses to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg - effectively ushering in what would become known as the protestant reformation – Rev Canon Steve Chalke is launching the new ‘Chalke Talk’ video web series. Through a weekly succession of videos, Steve will focus minds on ninety five burning questions that he believes the Church needs to face up to as part of a radical rethink of its theology, engagement and role in society.
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