Melbourne is the second-largest city in Australia and the capital of the state of Victoria. It has an ethnically diverse population of around 5 million people. Pre-COVID lockdown days, Melbourne boasted in the title of being Australia’s capital of culture, coffee, fashion, food, education, and sport. It still is the home of the famed Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) and the Australian Football League (AFL). It still is home to 7 Australian universities and also five university satellite campuses. But where Melbourne was once known as the most liveable city in the world, pride goes before the fall, and it is now best known as the most locked-down city in the world!

I think it’s fairly safe to say that all readers of this review will not be shocked by the idea that tolerance could in fact be intolerant. After all, we live in a society where court cases arise from refusing to make a cake promoting gay rights, where banks have asked Christian charities to close their accounts and where Christian university groups across the UK have been forced to disband. D.A. Carson’s book could not be more apt to help speak a voice of biblical reason into the chaos of a society that has made so called “tolerance” its god.

This film like the other follows famous detective Hercule Poirot, this time to a wedding. Not just any wedding though, a wedding for the illustrious and wealthy Simon and Linnet Doyle. Poirot is attending a destination wedding (the worst kind!) in a small village in Egypt. The wedding reception and festivities, however, are aboard a luxurious boat steaming up the Nile River.

Andrea Levy was a British writer of Jamaican descent who poured her heritage and the history of her family’s home country into her writings. Though this is the first book I have read written by Andrea Levy I doubt it will be my last as her witty, yet strikingly blunt writing is compelling and thought-provoking.

DISNEY’S LIVE-ACTION remake of classic tale Beauty and the Beast has been one of the most hotly anticipated films of 2017. Such an enduring, enchanting tale could hardly fail to bring in the big bucks, and so it was little surprise that, in its opening weeks at the box office, it became the biggest film on the planet.

A 21-year-old Paul Simon would lock himself in the bathroom, sit alone with the lights off and play his guitar. It was while playing his guitar in the darkness he first sang, “Hello darkness my old friend, I’ve come to talk with you again”. 

We walk these crooked streets

Watching thick, throbbing veins pump black ooze

Throughout our tiny world like drainpipes.

They infect people, houses, even churches.

The symptoms of this disease?

Loss of sight and loss of life.

Before I went, I thought - Angola is a Christian country, do I need to go there? But being here over a year, I was like yeah, Angola still really needs the gospel.

Nadine Brandes stands up to many of my favourite dystopian authors in her ability to swiftly yet effectively create a vibrant and immersive imaginative world along with engaging characters who draw you deeply into their lives.

If you listen to Imagine Dragons lyrics, especially “Night Visions,” they are very honest about the nature of human existence. As we listen, it rings true with our own experience. But as we’ll see, the hope clung to is more sentimental and not so grounded in reality. The Bible shows us our problematic reality as well but also reveals God’s way of salvation from it.

It is an uncomfortable, painful, and sometimes even embarrassing experience to be a witness to the extremities of human emotion. In a culture where we are very guarded about our feelings and expression of them we can be lost for words when the agonies of someone’s heart are displayed. It is hard to understand and empathize. There is the fear that we will amplify the pain by trying to offer whatever inadequate comfort we can summon …

Rachel Platten had a dream to become a successful singer-song writer. For over a decade she tried to make this dream come true. She wrote a lot of songs. None of them were hits. She travelled across America and sang in small venues sometimes with an audience of just 20 people. She made many CDs of her music, but sold few. What was she doing with her life? She was 32. Most of her friends had solid jobs, houses and families while she was struggling to get by! She had written over hundred songs that no-one seemed to want to hear. Should she give up or keep on singing?

Do we as the church really understand what the Bible tells us about women? How do we teach our boys to view their mothers, sisters and other ladies in the church? What are we teaching our girls as they grow up in an age of raging feminism and increased sexualisation? Do you really know what the Bible teaches about half of the church?

In response to ‘An Epitaph in Kilraughts Old Graveyard’

This film deserves a whole lot of attention, and a lot more viewers. It will break your heart (and put it back together again). It’s powerful, moving, beautifully made, and will leave you thinking for days. If you haven’t yet seen it, go no further with this review: just go watch it

A few weeks ago I grabbed a bag of popcorn and a bottle of water and was ready to settle down to enjoy another film in the Avengers franchise! Yes, you’ve guessed - Captain Marvel! This film is similar to most Avengers films in that it’s aimed primarily for late teens to young adults. With plenty of action-packed scenes, witty jokes and a star-studded cast, what’s not to love!

Albania achieved fame for being the most closed country in Europe during the period between WWII and the fall of the Berlin Wall. It was subject to an even more extreme form of Marxism than the rest of Eastern Europe. During that period, it was well known that it was the first country in the world to outlaw all forms of religious expression – except worship of the Party of course! Then, in a spectacular turn around, it became one of the most open countries for Christian outreach during the 1990’s

The biography by Ron Chernow is the inspiration behind the Tony award-winning musical, which has recently arrived to the West End. The story of Alexander Hamilton is indeed a remarkable one, a penniless orphan (well almost) immigrant who manages through his diligence and hard work to become the advisor to Washington penmen of the American constitution.

The jeweller displays the beauty of a diamond against the blackest cloth, the contrast highlighting the clarity and purity of the stone. One recent news story which carried the darkest details was the trial of former US gymnastic team doctor Larry Nassar who used his position of respect and responsibility to prey upon vulnerable young girls. Yet against this horrific backdrop God used one of his children to display the fierce beauty of the gospel.

Bruno Mars released this simple but very catchy song on his first studio album in 2010. In an interview, Bruno Mars talking about the song, said he was trying to capture the feeling “when you’re in Vegas, and you’ve had way too many drinks, and you love everybody, and you want to do something that you probably shouldn’t do and you’ll regret in the morning.” In the song that ‘something’ is to spontaneously marry someone.