Ask with David Deane

In the final months of every calendar year, we find ourselves bombarded by colours, carols, characters and smells associated with Christmas. In particular, there’s always one reoccurring fellow that makes an appearance on the TV, billboards, ads, front lawns, email signatures, websites, shopping malls, and, well, just about everywhere you turn your head: yep, the big red ‘n white: Santa Claus. And now we find ourselves with this question: Should Christian parents encourage belief in Santa Claus?

In this week's episode of Ask I give a longer-than-usual personal response, and even take a moment to consider what Bishop Nicholas himself might think of the now ghostly legend of his name.

The Bible contains all sorts of different teachings and instructions on all sorts of different issues for different people in different times and different places for different purposes. Some of those instructions are still relevant today, some of them are not. The tension comes, then, as a consequence of how we understand this progression, and whether we think God's teaching is for our good.

In this week's episode of Ask, I respond to a personal question about the law, sin, and specifically, the area of sexuality.

After his resurrection from the dead, Jesus appeared to his disciples. In John chapter 20 we read of one disciple who was a little late to the party; his fellow disciples say to Thomas – “we have seen the Lord” but Thomas says, “Unless I see in his hands the marks of the nails, and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into his side, I will never believe…” (John 20:25) Can you relate to doubting Thomas?

In this week's episode of Ask, I respond to perhaps the most important question anyone could ever ask: 'How can I know God?'

Have you ever been in a classroom or a bible study, reading a text, and had the teacher or leader go around the room asking ‘what does this text mean to you’? Before you know it, the text can mean as many different things as there are people in the room! We all come from unique backgrounds, with different personalities, preunderstandings, presuppositions and assumptions affecting the way we read and interpret the meaning of words. But does that mean we are locked out of ever knowing the objective meaning of what's been written?

In this week's episode of Ask, I respond to a question about objectivity in interpretation, specifically interpretation of God's word, the Bible.

Throughout the gospels Jesus says things like "your faith has made you well" and even in the Old Testament, we have prophetic words about Jesus, like Isaiah 53 which says “He would wounded for our transgressions… by his stripes we are healed…” Do passages like this teach a connection between our faith in what Jesus has done for us in salvation to our physical health?

The late evangelist Billy Graham – who is sometimes held up as the quintessential evangelical – was once asked 'what is evangelicalism?' In response, Graham said: "Actually, that’s a question I’d like to ask somebody too… The lines [have] become blurred… You go all the way from the extreme fundamentalists to the extreme liberals and, somewhere in between, there are the evangelicals.” 

The disparate nature of evangelicalism makes the movement and it's members difficult to define. In this episode of Ask I take a little extra time to canvas different ways of looking at "evangelicalism" before providing some brief commentary on the current state of the evangelical church, broadly considered.

Did you know that the number of social media users equates to almost almost 57% of the world’s total population? And despite all the political hype about ‘fake news’ and social media censorship, that number has jumped by more than 13% from this time last year - we're talking half a billion new users in a 12-month period! 

It’s something of an Australianese to say ‘no worries’ or ‘she’ll be right…’ but … there are worries, and she won’t always be right. In fact, the Australian Bureau of Statistics records that, in 2018, 13% or 3.2 million Australians had an anxiety-related condition, a number which has surged during the course of COVID.

In this weeks episode of Ask, I explore the idea of worry from a Christian point of view; a timely question for our times.

Many people leave church for many reasons. Whatever the scenario, I think the decision to leave a church and go elsewhere is a weighty one, and I explore some reasons why in this week's episode of Ask.

This question has come in response to a recent episode where I emphasised the importance of Christian unity, and I welcome the opportunity to clarify some thoughts from the other side about when breaking fellowship may be appropriate.

When I say "knock knock", you say ________ ? Why do you say that? Well - two sentences in, and I've already asked you two questions! What does that say about me? What does it say about you?

In this week's episode of Ask, I explore some brief thoughts about what question asking tells us about ourselves. This was a fun one; it's not every day you get a question about questions!