There are many places where you can read about the relative merits of The Alpha Course and Christianity Explored. I don't have anything new to say on the topic. However, as I regrettably belong to a local church that uses The Alpha Course, I do want to make my own position clear. I fully subscribe to the view presented in this Banner of Truth article The 'Alpha' and the 'Christianity Explored' Course.

Christianity & Liberalism by J Gresham Machen was first published in 1923 and it addresses the issue of Liberalism from a theological perspective. As you might expect, it is a serious book, and as such requires some effort to read. Nevertheless, it is far from being too archaic and dry.

I was stunned by a report on this morning's Breakfast programme broadcast on BBC 1. The report was in essence the same as this Guardian article. The proposal is that women should be given the right to be informed about whether their partner has a violent past.

Ray Galea was raised as a Maltese Roman Catholic in Australia. His book Nothing In My Hand I Bring describes the reasons why he was unable to remain a Roman Catholic once he found a personal faith in Christ. He is not unsympathetic to the Catholic cause, and it was very painful for him to have to reject his Catholic upbringing. Nevertheless, he is very clear about the significant differences between Roman Catholic dogma and doctrine on the one hand, and the teaching of the Bible on the other.

David Cook was the main speaker at New Word Alive 2011. His book The Unheeded Christ highlights the words of Christ that Christians today fail to observe. The back cover says, “Jesus Christ is a provocative, uncompromising teacher. Yet it is easy to become so accustomed to Jesus' words that they become old friends – comfortable, familiar, unchallenging. We get so used to him that we don't take notice of what he commands us to do.”

I have just read The Clean Coder by Robert C. “Uncle Bob” Martin, a companion to his well known and respected work, Clean Code. This new book is subtitled A Code of Conduct for Professional Programmers.

While at New Word Alive in April, a particular book caught my eye: "Respectable Sins: Confronting The Sins We Tolerate" by Jerry Bridges. However, I realised that this was one of the books I had bought at New Word Alive 2010 but hadn't got round to reading! So now I have read it.

I wrote the following article for our church magazine almost a year ago; it is reproduced here, slightly modified for the web.

One of the "books" I bought at New Word Alive 2010 was "Listen Up! A practical guide to listening to sermons." It is a little gem in the form of a 32 page A5 booklet by Christopher Ash.

From all accounts, it appears that Osama Bin Laden was a very bad man, and if those accounts are true I welcome his demise. However, here are a few quotes that I find concerning.

There were many things of note at New Word Alive 2011, but I especially appreciated a couple of comments from Rico Tice.

First, if you ask someone why they are a Christian and they tell you that it's because they were born into a Christian home, then the best thing you can do for the pastoral care of their soul is to take them outside and head-butt them, because they simply haven't understood the Gospel! Of course, this was said in jest, but the important point was effectively made.

Nick Clegg has been proposing that the laws concerning primogeniture should change to allow a first-born child to be first in line to the throne irrespective of gender. While I appreciate the principles of fairness and equality behind this sentiment, one has to wonder whether this is focused on removing the speck when there is an enormous great plank that needs removing. The monarchy has nothing to do with fairness and equality. Why should the first-born have preference over younger siblings? Why should the monarch's children have preference over others?

I recently spent a week at New Word Alive and more than one session focused on concern for the lost. This caused me to reflect once more on something that has troubled me before.

Once the New Heaven and the New Earth have come, “death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away”. (Revelation 21:4 ESV) Right now, here on earth, there are two big things that trouble us deeply as Christians: our own sin, and the fate of the unbeliever.

In this day and age it is very useful to be able to read information in electronic form. This is particularly true of reference materials, where the advantages of not having to wheel around a wheelbarrow load of books are obvious. However, until recent times, electronic reference materials have been slow to appear.

I have purchased very few documents in electronic form, whereas I have far too many printed books. This has until now mainly been due to lack of availability of electronic editions.

The Lord used the King James Version (KJV) to bring me to repentance and faith. I used to read this in the months before and after my conversion, and I continued to use it in my early christian life. I also used the Good News Bible (GNB) on occasion, though I was never very happy with that.

Melvyn Bragg was on BBC 1 Breakfast this morning talking about the the King James Version of the bible and his book about the same. He made the following poignant comment about today's society, “Secularism holds the microphone and atheism holds the megaphone.”

On certain types of websites, most access is anonymous by the general public. A login panel is therefore distracting and wastes space. However, login needs to be available for those few users who maintain the site content or otherwise adminster it.