Stephen Murray

For the last few days, I’ve seen my social media timeline filled with grief expressed by my African American friends and colleagues. I’ve seen fellow church planters and pastors, with whom I’ve attended many a conference and training, expressing their emotional exhaustion in the face of the killing of yet another black man, the killing...
Stephen Murray and Doug Logan explore what it means to face diversity, race and unity in church planting. What do we need in order to establish churches which express the diverse people of God found in Scripture? What will cross-shaped love cost us in pursuing diversity? How do we do pursue both individual discipleship and make significant structural decisions if we wish to deal with racism and pursue diversity in…
In the quest to create more just churches and interrogate the historical failings of the church, in areas of social justice, it has been popular to re-evaluate, and sometimes discard some of the traditional doctrines associated with orthodox Christianity. One such doctrine is the doctrine of penal substitutionary atonement. Do we discard it as an archaic and barbaric conception of God's saving work? Or do we embrace and apply it…
Unless you’re hiding under a rock you’ve probably seen some sort of media coverage of the racial tensions and violence at the University of Pretoria and the University of the Free State. You’ve seen scenes of hatred, frustration, aggression, and deliberate racial violence. You’ve probably also seen a lot of polarising commentary. The poles feel...