Writing has always been a large part of my profession (i.e. my day job!), however, in the last couple of years I have started to write reflections about my faith. The two areas I enjoy writing on are going back to the foundational texts of the Christian faith to assess their message for a modern reader and secondly apologetics in response to contemporary challenges to the Christian faith.

The first book I blogged was John Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion. It was a book that I had often heard about but never read.  I was intrigued as to why this book had had such an impact on the roots of my faith, and wanted to get to know the real Calvin for myself, rather than rely on other people’s perceptions. I wanted to see what I could learn from the faith of my fathers. It had been on my shelf for many years but I was put off by its length and depth. However, as 2009 was Calvin’s 500th birthday I decided it was now or never! I got a daily reading plan and read a portion every day during 2009 and then wrote my reflections in response. For each chapter of the four books that make up the Institutes I wrote a blog post – you can read them here.

One day at work I was talking with a friend, and we got into a discussion on science and faith. As we were both scientists he couldn’t understand why I would believe such nonsense. So we challenged each other to read two books that would challenge our own views.

I asked him to read CS Lewis’ Mere Christianity and Ravi Zacharias’ Can Man Live Without God? and he challenged me to read Christopher Hitchen’s God Is Not Great and Richard Dawkin’s The God Delusion. I have begun a series of posts on the first book that you can read here.

For two years I wrote the bible study notes for our church house groups based on the sermons our Pastor was preaching at Central Baptist Church, Dundee. We covered John’s gospel, Revelation and a series on the church.

The study guides are given here and you can download or listen online to the accompanying sermons here.