An enduring mystery: the poor are still with us always An enduring mystery: the poor are still with us always It was a sentence tucked away near the end of Tim Watkin’s story on the nation’s Poor List (Editors note: NZ Herald 19.07.03), but for me it seemed to sum […] Read more »

God's still in heaven and busy building His kingdom God's still in heaven and busy building His kingdom We have to laugh, don't we? If we didn't, we'd be in tears. Now women - lesbian women anyway - are going to be able to call themselves fathers. As if we […] Read more »

Time to get real: we're living in a land of fear and fibs Time to get real: we're living in a land of fear and fibs Most of us seem to be living in a constant state of fear. And to cover our fear we have overlaid our lives with […] Read more »

Many things in today's world break the human spirit Many things in today's world break the human spirit The only surprise in the story at the weekend about 30 million Americans suffering from depression at a cost of $52 billion in lost production each year was that the figures weren't […] Read more »

Extortion, blackmail a fact of life in churchianity Extortion, blackmail a fact of life in churchianity I was reminded the other day of the big, brown pennies with which I grew up in the days of pounds, shillings and pence. I was reading about the Pacific Island churches that are […] Read more »

The sanctity of life is a flip-flop on both wings The sanctity of life is a flip-flop on both wings It always has been a funny old world. Just lately I reckon it's getting funnier. And I mean funny as in peculiar, not funny as in ha ha. It has […] Read more »

Church - alive and well and getting on with the job Church - alive and well and getting on with the job "Why", a minister asked me a week or so back, "has the church been sidelined?" To which I was only too quick to reply that the church had […] Read more »

Time to stop arguing and just knock Saddam off Time to stop arguing and just knock Saddam off Saddam Hussein is the sort of man you rather wish had never survived being born, the sort of man - like Hitler and Stalin - whom this world could well have done […] Read more »

Marriage - the best lifestyle choice Marriage - the best lifestyle choice It's happening at last. What tens of thousands of New Zealanders have known all along is gradually becoming plain to society at large - the social revolution of the past 30 years has failed and the evidence is […] Read more »

God save our families from bewildered busybodies God save our families from bewildered busybodies The child-rearing debate this week moved from the ridiculous to the absurd. A group of grown-ups (I hesitate to call them adults) put on a forum on "family violence" in the Auckland Town Hall, the feature […] Read more »