Papers and articles

Over the years I have written a few papers and articles on various church-related topics, mainly music in worship, but also on science and the lamentable lack of science-engagement in churches.

Title Topic Comments
Music for worship
Top-down or bottom-up? Might our "big" mentality of church music be harmful? Let us put the "small church" uppermost. For World Church Music Symposium, Coventry, Cambridge and London, 1998.
How long O Lord, will we forget? Recovering the Psalms into church worship. Published: Worship Live, Autumn 1998, Stainer & Bell.
Leading worship songs from the piano Hints for contemporary styles. Written for training days and courses in the Diocese of Durham
Music Team guidelines A possible set of guidelines for a church music team. Drafted for our music team at St. John's Church, Nevilles Cross, Durham, 1997
Bible translation
Lamentations English translations of Lamentations seem always sub-standard. The original Hebrew has rock solid foundations on some hard-core poetic features. Most English translations jettison these. The few that do honour them seem only to pick one but continue to ignore the others. This new translation regards these hard-core poetic features as absolutely vital and intrinsic.
Miscellany: Science, biblical interpretation, etc.
Creationism and bar-room lust Debunking the anti-biblical quack-scientism of "creationism", from a literary (rather than literal) perspective.  
Creation ordering How the writers and editors of Genesis understood the world. Their science, not ours. Evolution and modern science are far more biblical than supposedly "biblical" young-earth creationism. "Literal" reading of Gen:1-11 is literally and literarily unbiblical, verging on anti-biblical.
C.S. Lewis speaking in accents clear but stilled C.S Lewis and British regional accents. Starting with The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and with Tumnus the Faun, listen out for Lewis' use of the British regional accents.
Michal and David: domestic abuse? "David: good; Michal: bad". Is it really that simple? Might it even be the opposite? Stop reading "the David story". Start reading "the Michal story".
Resurrection Song of Songs Song of Songs; and Mary Magdalene meeting the risen Jesus.