by Roland Wrinkle Getting Personal. I’ll never forget it. It is seared in my animated memory. It was my daughter’s eighth birthday and she wanted to have a birthday party at the local ice rink. Ten girls came. And all ten spent the entire “party” avoiding her and isolating her. And… this was the sad norm. My daughter never “fit in.” She grew up as a person who “was different.” She was soon misdiagnosed as suffering from Obsessive Compulsion Disorder. Years later they said she was firmly planted deeply on the Autism Spectrum. There was no question about i ..read more

by Roland Wrinkle IF THERE WERE NO SUFFERING, THERE WOULD BE NO BIBLE, NO CHRIST, NO CHRISTIANS,  NO EASTER, NO CHRISTMAS, NO CHURCH, NO SECOND COMING, NO RENEWED AND RESTORED CREATION    Somehow, and for some reason, that just doesn’t sound like a good thing to me. The genesis of suffering is in Genesis, i.e., it comes from us:  GEN 1: “God saw all that he had made, and it was very good [i.e., no suffering] GEN 3: “Because you [i.e., us] have done this…” “To the woman he said, “I will make your pains in childbearing very severe [suff ..read more

by Roland Wrinkle “Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.” Alexander Pope. -I’ve never been called an angel…so, you do the math. The First Time: Curlender v. Bio–Science Laboratories. Forty-five years ago, I handled a case where a young Jewish couple wound up giving birth to a child afflicted with Tay-Sachs disease. Tay-Sachs disease is the most horrific infant disorder you could ever imagine. The child (identified by a little red dot in her eye) starts developing symptoms after a couple of months and then starts regressing into a nightmare existence of blindness, deafness, p ..read more

by Roland Wrinkle Early Origins. We’re Christians. We know there is good and evil. We know the bible talks a lot about evil—430 times to be exact. Our original ancestors got themselves into an existential caldron of woe by turning their backs on their Creator and violating his direct command not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. They first listened to what their Father had to say… and then they listened to a scaled, slithering, forked-tongued reptile. They went with the reptile. People often ask (incredulously), “Do you really believe there was a ..read more

by Roland Wrinkle Christmas Before I Became a Christian. Forty-seven years ago, I married a cute little Jewish girl. We had four kids. We celebrated Christmas and Hanukkah. I didn’t believe in Christ and she never heard of Torah. We were made for each other. We bought way too many toys for the holidays, celebrated joyously with our extended families, went thoroughly and embarrassingly overboard on all that attends these massive festivals of love, family, friends and craven materialism. Then…I read the bible. Colossal Holidays With Feet of Clay. It didn’t take too long before I discov ..read more

by Rev Dr Bill Barnes Thanksgiving is a time when we pause to remind ourselves and one another of all the things and people we are grateful for in our lives, and we also take a breath in and breathe out our thankfulness to God who not only set creation in motion, but crowned it with the presence of Adam and Eve (our ancestors) and later visited the planet He created in the same human form (he had created), to save the very species he had created. I hope for you that this Christmas is not simply the inconvenience of shopping for gifts for all your relatives and friends, but rather the experienc ..read more

by Roland Wrinkle What’s A Creed? A creed is a settled statement of what precisely it is that defines our faith. The first creed in the bible is known as the Shema, found first in Deuteronomy 6.4 and lots of other places, including the sayings of Jesus. “Listen, Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord alone, and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your being, and all your might.” Later on, Jesus added “with all your mind” to the list. It simply and elegantly meant that there aren’t, and never were, a bunch of different gods ..read more

By Roland Wrinkle The Book of Hebrews is adamant that the “old” commandments (laws, rules, regulations) are “obsolete,” “useless,” “set aside,” and “weak” and have been replaced by a “new” covenant and a “new” regulation, law, commandment which is “better” and “superior.”  In chapters 7 and 8, the author puts it this like this: The former regulation is set aside because it was weak and useless (for the law made nothing perfect), and a better hope is introduced, by which we draw near to God…. Jesus has become the guarantor of a better covenant…. the law appoints as high priests m ..read more

by Roland Wrinkle It’s been well over a year since every human being on earth joined hands, braced themselves and girded all the earth to endure the worst pandemic in 100 years. 7.8 billion of God’s children, together with all of His Creation, shared a nightmare. Now, perhaps, at longest last, it might be possible to allow ourselves to slip cautiously into accepting that, not only are green shoots sprouting up in a previously apocalyptic landscape, but that a new day is dawning for God’s good world. A world which has passed through the valley of the shadow of death. A new world where we can&nb ..read more

by Roland Wrinkle [Preface: I realize that this can be confusing stuff.  I have done my best to set it all out in a way that can be understood (This is really important stuff!).  I have tried to reduce the esoterics and academics to the least amount possible. Libraries of books have been written on this subject over thousands of years. Reducing it to a couple of pages ain’t easy. You will undoubtably need to read it several times and perhaps underline and make notes.] Fred is adamant that the “old” covenant (promise, treaty, contract) and “old” commandments (laws, rules, re ..read more