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Self-image and “a wretch like me”: Is John Newton’s view of mankind biblical?
“We hear much in the present day of the dignity of human nature.” These words, written over two hundred years ago, could have been written in this morning’s paper. In fact, the speaker is former slave-trader, turned pastor, John Newton. Yes, that John Newton. The guy who wrote “Amazing grace (how sweet the sound) that saved a wretch like me.” A wretch. That’s fairly negative terminology. Though not quite as negative as his other favourite
To die is gain: Christian suicide and the logic of Paul
It’s a moment rich in pathos as the wizened apostle pours his heart out to the Philippian believers. The words flow simply from his pen: “To me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” It is doubtful Shakespeare himself wrote anything so poetic. Yet beneath the poetry rests a profound reality. To live is Christ; to die is gain. What believer can read these words without feeling the tug of eternity, the longing
The minister’s honest epitaph
I posted at InFocus yesterday morning on the honest epitaph. Funerals are awkward things. At a time when people are most attuned to the hard realities of truth, we often sigh as speaker after speaker tries desperately to make a halo fit around the horns of the dearly deceased. I’ve often thought, therefore, what it would be like if someone could invent a tombstone that gave an honest epitaph. You know, the real one. But
Why we pursued prosecution
It was 19 February, 2013 when Mum and I walked into the police station in Cairns and reported decades of crimes that had taken place in our home over the forty years leading up to that day. A few weeks ago, more than ten years later, we finally closed that chapter as the judge read out the sentence against my father, Rev. Larry Harris (Illawarra Mercury). He has now been convicted on nine criminal counts