Mark Keown

What an amazing year! COVID-19 has dominated, of course, we all know about that and have been affected one way or another. America has a new president, although the current one is not giving up without a fight. And so we come to another Christmas. Christmas tells the story of God’s Son entering human history in a young woman's womb in an insignificant ancient town, Bethlehem. He was raised in the even more insignificant Nazareth. Such things show that God is prepared to come in undramatic circumstances, away from the glitz and glamour of those in power, and grow his kingdom from a small seed into the largest tree in the garden. He came through the miraculous conception of a virgin, showing that God is a God of miracles. He is an interventionist, God, entering creation at his will, to work out his purposes—we are comforted that God can if he wills. He was conceived in a womb and born in the usual human way, not in a blaze of heavenly glory with angels and fire, showing God’s p...

 It is common in our western cultures to speak of “religion” to describe an entity of people who believe in God or gods or who adhere to a particular religious group. It is fair to call such groups religions, we have to call them something. It helps in analysing the differences across humankind. However, what then happens is that others can use this label to make gross generalisations such as blaming religion for ills in the world, like war. They can put people down who do believe in God or gods as inferior because they submit themselves to the said religion’s creeds and ideas. It can become politicised, stigmatised, and weaponised. This has happened in western cultures. Such putting down and labelling is naïve as all humans are religious and submit to something or someone. For some people, it is the government. They look to the government to solve the ills of the world and believe in it. When there is a problem in society, they expect governments to fix it. We see this in NZ w...