Opinion

NASHVILLE (Tennessee) – The new US Religious Landscape Survey, conducted by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, offers a picture of early 21st-century American religious attitudes that is not surprising, at least to those of us who track religious life along Main Street USA. The survey results suggest that a growing proportion of Americans […]

CAN a person be rich, powerful and yet unhappy? Well, Zaccheus was such a man. But why was Zaccheus not happy? Firstly, could it be that he was socially alienated? You see, he was a tax collector. He collected taxes from the Jewish people for the occupying Roman empire. In the eyes of the nationalists, […]

  RECENTLY a cousin called me to pick my brains, so she said. She has been going to this particular Methodist Church for a number of years and one day, happened to pick up a Bible from the pew. On the inside page, it read “Property of xxx Methodist Church. Please do not remove.” It […]

  JENNY, a mother of three teenagers, recently expressed to me her fear that both her daughter and son seemed to be flirting with things that were harmful to their spiritual health. I asked her what made her think this. She said that both had come home with the smell of cigarettes on their clothing […]

Global Warning: Local Acting WHEN we were preparing to leave the United States after completing our studies, our friends asked us, “What will you miss about the States when you return to Singapore?” Our reply was, “Apart from friends and the four seasons, we will miss the recycling bins!” We had developed the practice of […]

ON ONE occasion when John Wesley was feeling particularly exasperated at the way things had developed at Kingswood, the school he founded near Bristol, he exclaimed: “I will have a Christian school or I will have no school at all.” What is a Christian school? When we describe the ACS schools as Christian schools what […]

It simply warns against confounding these images with God Are Roman Catholics and Orthodox Christians disobeying the second commandment when they use images and icons in worship? THERE is no consensus on the interpretation of Exodus 20:4-6. Roman Catholics and Orthodox Christians maintain that these verses refer not to Christian icons but pagan idols. According to […]

CHURCHES that are growing and dynamic almost always have a strong culture and history of youth ministry. With this thought in mind I set out to understand the youth ministry in Singapore through the eyes of paid church youth workers. In the second half of 2006 I conducted formal interviews with 35 stipendiary church-based youth […]

What should be the Christian attitude towards abortion? WITHOUT a doubt, abortion is one of the most divisive and controversial issues of our day. People have strong views about abortion because it is never merely an issue of social preferences. For some the abortion issue has to do with personal autonomy, while for others it has to […]

REV DR WILSON WHEN it comes to sharing the Gospel, most Christians would probably agree with missiologist Hendrik Kraemer when he talks about meeting listeners on their own terms. He writes, “Communication involves the communicator having somehow discerned which are the obstacles to the receipt of the message in such a way as to be […]

Do angels exist? What are they like, and what is their role in God’s plan? THERE seem to be two extreme responses to the reality of angels among Christians today. On one end of the spectrum, some Christians seem to dismiss angels as a myth that no one in this scientific age can be expected […]

HAS the song, “Pass it on”, become a tradition? The question was brought home to me during an opening praise time as the worship leader was vamping up to the song. Speaking over sentimental guitar strumming, he recalled how the song had especially touched him as a youth. He went on to lead the congregation […]