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So you take some photos - just ordinary things, like a trip to the park with the kids, a night out with friends, a snapshot at the beach which happened to come out as a perfect windswept portrait. You share them on facebook so your family can see. They gradually filter down into the archive of your account where you forget about them completely. Several years pass. A phone call from a friend. “Do you realise that...?” “What?! You can’t be serious?” You check out the webpage. Sure enough. That’s your face. But it’s not your body. And you have never even seen the other people on the film - never mind engaged in a sexual orgy. It’s called deepfake porn. Someone took those old pictures of you and used a computer algorithm to generate a 3D model of your face to cut and paste into a sexually explicit film. Discovering that you have been the unconscious subject of a deepfake porn film would no doubt come as a shock. Just reading about it may well provoke a sense of disgust. Perhaps more ...

When the Covid restrictions were first announced last Spring there was a tide of good will, community spirit and shared resolve. There was a new enemy but it was an enemy that we could beat if we all pulled together. The summer sun certainly helped keep the mood positive. It didn’t seem that long before things started to return, gradually, back to some kind of normality. We didn’t have to dig so deep anymore. We could relax a little. Perhaps, like me, you hoped that this was the end. It was a serious threat but by taking action together we had avoided the worst. It was not as bad as it could have been. Alas, we were wrong! We couldn’t see how bad the second wave would be. We didn’t know how many new variants would arise and that they would prove more contagious to different subsections of society. Medical friends who have been following the studies closely inform me that they always feared this. The progression models differed on the details but they all predicted that a ‘second wave’...

This is a very different blog than most that I write so please don’t feel any pressure to read on if it is not what you signed up for! Many people are juggling the balls of lockdown schooling with other responsibilities; in my case I would describe it more as dropping the balls. I hope to return to easier writing eventually but it will continue to be sporadic for a while! I started writing this as a mental exercise, in order to explore whether some of my own recent theological reading and reflection could offer any helpful insights in relation to recent political events. It addresses a topic which some colleagues and friends are discussing and this is the best platform I have with which to share my ideas. Trump, Trans, and Treason It seems bizarre to write these three words in the same sentence. Less than two weeks ago we were celebrating the end of 2020, the Year of ‘what could possibly happen next’. Alas it took only a few days to prove wrong any forecast of a return to normality....

Among the popular conspiracy theories currently circulating is the idea that elite political forces will use this virus pandemic to demolish current economic order with the purpose of rebuilding an entirely new model. Some put a religious end-times spin on this, perceiving that behind this great ‘reset’ is a satanic design to create a single, global Anti-Christ government. The Bible leaves little doubt that human leaders, in their pride and lust for power, have often tried to dominate the world by remodelling it to their own preference and advantage. It also leaves little doubt that such exercises are doomed to failure. The kings of the world might try to wrestle free of God’s superior reign, but God is sitting in heaven laughing at the futility of their efforts (Psalm 2). The Bible is clear that Satan is real and personal, a murderer and thief who delights to destroy and insight violence and suffering. He has often done this through those same political leaders who, in rebelling ag...

In a recent sexual abuse case, which is having a significant impact on Christians and churches in Wales, one of the victims was quoted (in the prosecution statement, as reported on the BBC news) as saying “I thought dark spirits were abusing me”. I think I am right in saying that the abuse happened whilst the victim slept. In that half-conscious, dreamy state it must have felt like a nightmare was coming true. Alongside the emotional and physical distress, this individual experienced a sense of spiritual distress. Was this just a vivid imagination or is there more to it? Is there a relationship between abuse and the spiritual realm of the ‘occult’? I am not here thinking about satanic cult conspiracy theories or about the disturbing things which some people claim to have experienced whilst actively and intentionally seeking interactions with spirits. What is on my mind is the fact that victims of human-on-human abuse sometimes express their traumatic experiences in a spiritual framewo...

It was about 11 years ago that I was first drawn into contact with a modern day Christian cult. You will not find it alongside Jehovah’s Witnesses and Latter-Day Saints in an encyclopaedia of religions. In fact, it took me a while to realise that it was a cult. At first I thought that these were just Christians with some really weird and difficult pastoral problems. It gradually became clear that they were not really Christian problems at all. They were problems created by a subtle but very, very nasty distortion of what the bible teaches.  This false teaching created an environment in which spiritual, physical, emotional, and sometimes sexual abuse thrived. God was not a gentle and loving Father but a moody tyrant in the sky - and human fathers were taking their lead from the bad example of this devilish false-god which they had cooked up in their own imaginations. It was worked out to different degrees, depending on the temperament of the parents, and could be particularly harsh ...

This is a difficult blog to write. I feel ashamed, hurt, angry, and perplexed and I do not want to draw unnecessary, unhealthy attention to a horrible situation. At the same time, we cannot allow this to become an ‘elephant in the room’. We do not need to talk publicly and in detail about this but we do need to talk quietly with one another. What has happened is real, and it is painful and damaging in many ways for many people. Yesterday the national news reported that Ben Thomas has been sentenced to ten years in prison for a string of sex offences. Some of his victims are my friends. Through sensitivity to their suffering and respect for their privacy I will not say anything more about them. His wife and family are my friends. When we lived in North Wales we played on the beach with his kids and ate ice-creams together. We have not been able to get in touch with them since this news broke and we are desperately concerned for them. Through sensitivity to their suffering and respe...