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Church: World Observations

No Edwins in the Bible!

When Cassius Clay converted to Islam, he changed his name to Muhammed Ali. When Steven Demetre Georgiou became a Muslim, he stopped calling himself Cat Stevens and became Yusuf Islam.  This isn’t news, we are used to the fact that converts adopt Islamic names, dress or hair style. So, why don’t I have an Aramaic name […]

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Observations

Blogging: Three Things

Firstly, thank you to all of those who made encouraging comments about this blog. I very much appreciate them. Blogging is an odd medium and encouraging feedback is really helpful. Secondly, I’ve added a facility to this blog that allows people to link comments on Kouyanet to their Facebook account. I’ve got no idea how […]

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Observations

A Bit of A Blogging Crisis of Confidence

A couple of days ago, while I was cycling to work, I found myself musing on the translation of the world ‘God’ (as you do). By the time I arrived at the office (I’m a slow cyclist) I had composed a brilliant blog post in my head that would explore this fascinating subject in great […]

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Observations

Blog of the Year 2013

For the last six years, around this time, I have announced my favourite blog of the year. This prestigious award is rigorously judged according to strict criteria. They must post regularly They must be consistently interesting I must like them more than other blogs for whatever subjective reasons I choose. There are a number of […]

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Observations

Books I Have Read: Book of 2013

Back in January, I set myself the goal of writing a blog post about every book I’ve read; and here is the full list. That is 42 blog posts, some of which include more than one book. I think I’ve included just about everything, but there may be the odd thriller that I got free […]

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Observations

Books I have Read: Bedtime Stories

One of my earliest memories is of scanning the large bookshelves in my childhood bedroom, looking for a book to read before going to sleep. The bottom two shelves contained my books; all of which I’d read many times and the shelves higher up contained some of my dad’s books all of which looked thoroughly […]

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Observations

Why Is ‘That’ In the Bible?

Just a quick thought for the day; have you ever wondered why the Bible writers included the stuff they did when they came to write down their accounts? The obvious answer is that they were inspired to do so. But the Bible writers weren’t simply dictation machines; taking down notes without actually being aware of it. […]

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Observations

My Favourite Things

My online friend Jenny (@stroopwaffle) recently wrote a blog post about her favourite things and asked others to do the same; so here is my belated response following her outline. Television Though I’m generally a big fan of the BBC, my favourite TV shows are the two hour crime dramas that ITV produces; Morse, Lewis, […]

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Observations

God and Humanity

“You come of the Lord Adam and the Lady Eve,” said Aslan. “And that is both honour enough to erect the head of the poorest beggar, and shame enough to bow the shoulders of the greatest emperor on earth. Be content.”  CS Lewis: Prince Caspian This is one of my favourite quotes from Lewis; it […]

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Observations

What’s Next: Crowdsourcing a Future!

Generally, if you want to know what we are doing, this blog may not be much help (though, its a pretty good place to find out what we are thinking.) The best way to actually keep up with our movements is through our regular news emails, which you can sign up for on the right […]