Categories
Observations

Ten Years Gone

Four houses, two countries, two degrees, one dog…. what the noughties held for the Arthurs. I know that technically the decade doesn’t end for another year, but in popular perception the decade ends tonight and I’m happy to go along with that. This time ten years ago we were living in Abidjan, where I was […]

Categories
Languages

The World’s Hardest Language

Thanks to John (our man in Africa) for pointing me to this fascinating article in the Economist: …which is the hardest language? On balance The Economist would go for Tuyuca, of the eastern Amazon. It has a sound system with simple consonants and a few nasal vowels, so is not as hard to speak as […]

Categories
Church: World

The Point of the Church

The church’s foundation and continued existence are not to provide refuge for lonely souls, or even less to be a plank of salvation on a tempestuous sea that threatens damnation. The point of the church is rather to point beyond itself, to be a community that preaches, serves and witnesses to the reign of God. […]

Categories
Observations

Wycliffe Bible Translators UK Blogs

A number of my colleagues are regular bloggers. However, I deliberately excluded them from my list of blogs of the year for fear of risking friendship and working relationships. Here is a list of Wycliffe UK members who have blogs, taken from Wycliffe Bible Translators own blog. Andrew and Clare Koens Clarke and Alison Rice […]

Categories
Do Not Use

Best Kouya Chronicle Blog Posts of the Year

I thought I’d allow myself a touch of narcissism and work out which was my favourite post from Kouya Chronicle. Actually, in looking back over the last year’s production, I was struck by how much of what I have posted is rather forgettable. That being said, there  is some good stuff amidst rubble. My list […]

Categories
Observations Reviews

Blog of the Year

Is it just me, or has blogdom become rather boring of late? There are lots of blogs out there, but very rarely do I come across anything that makes me leap out of my seat in sheer joy and wonderment. More and more I come across Christian blogs which fall into one or more of […]

Categories
Africa Church: UK

The Lonely European?

Richard Dowden has an interesting article about Africans and loneliness in The Times today. Or rather, about Africans and not being lonely. While I tend to be suspicious about anything that makes universal claims for a continent as large and diverse as Africa, I feel that he has a point. Here are a few excerpts: […]

Categories
Reviews

Reads of the Year

I try to keep a record of everything I read in a library database called Biblioscape. However, I rarely manage to keep everything up to date,  so I’m not actually sure what I have read this year, but with that limitation in place, here are my highlights. It is hard to single out one Christian […]

Categories
Do Not Use

Is NT Wright the Grinch?

I don’t often read Credenda Agenda, but I was amused to come across a recent article entitled How NT Wright Stole Christmas. “Several years ago, when The Passion of the Christ was making headlines, I realized that N. T. Wright has spoiled every Jesus film.  Once you’ve read Wright, you realize that none of the […]

Categories
Quotes

Translation and Orality

John Piper has an interesting little article on the need for Bible translation in oral cultures. You can read a synopsis here, or listen to the audio file here. … And the reason they need the Bible, of course—and why we shouldn’t praise orality excessively, as a substitute for literacy—is that, to the degree that […]