Welcome

Welcome to Brian’s Public Theology site where you can find a range of articles relating to the themes which you can see listed on the right-hand side of the page. The aim of the site is simply to make available a set of resources I have. Most of them are downloadable and I hope that you will find them helpful.  Shalom.

Why is there suffering?

At my own church, North Ringwood Uniting Church, I was interviewed on the question of suffering. I must say that my own life has been remarkably free of it, and any wisdom comes from looking at the Scripture. But it makes a lot of sense to be prepared before it happens! People ask questions like: Why do good, innocent people suffer? Why do bad things happen to good people? What about accidental death and suffering?  Why does this happen to some and not others? Why doesn’t God prevent ‘natural’ disasters like tsunamis?

And the first thing to do is to remember that for every difficult and complex problem there is a simple solution………….. that is wrong!  The problem of evil and suffering is difficult and complex and no one ever said there had to be a single solution for all suffering. Trying to explain human accidents, perfectly natural events (like dying), natural disasters and deliberate suffering all with one simple explanation is probably impossible. You can read more about what is said here.

What Hope is there for Mission?

It was a privilege to  give the Whitley College Annual Missiology Lecture. Whitley College is an Australian Baptist training college. The lecture was subsequently published in the Australian Journal of Mission Studies, Vol4, No 2 (Dec 2010) 55-61  but you can download it from here.  For more…

Enhancing Christian Formation