“There is a depressing predictability to what’s currently happening in the Middle-East. An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth – something that Jesus warned about in the Sermon on the Mount. Israel under Roman occupation was the original context of those words. If you live like that, the whole world ends up blind and whole world ends up toothless. But how do you break the cycle of violence? (And do we wish to?) Jesus, didn’t lead a violent revolt against the Roman Empire; he didn’t attack other religions. He criticised his fellow Jews for their hypocrisy and taught his disciples to be meek, to turn the other cheek, to go the extra mile, to love their enemies, to lose their lives and take up the cross.”

“The idea that we know what will happen in world events is troubling, especially given Jesus’ own words that we will not know the day or hour. There’s certainly a neatness and a sense of comfort from the ideas associated with traditional prophecy interpretation, but I wonder if they may require us to think in ways that compromise Jesus and Paul’s message of universality, of an end to nationhood playing a key role in the destiny of the world.”