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When Jesus stood before Pontius Pilate he was given a few brief minutes to explain himself to the man who had it within his power to inflict enormous pain and, eventually death. Jesus summed up his life and ministry in these words: "I have come to bear witness to the truth", which is a statement I have always thought significant for what it doesn't say. Pilate responds by asking "what is truth?" - a question steeped in, soaked, boiled and deep tissue injected with agnosticism. I don't think that Pilate saw anything beyond doubt. All claims to truth, he seems to be saying, were ephemeral and personal and tentative, including the claim being made by this odd Galilean whom he was being badgered into crucifying. What he couldn't quite get was that the truth he was doubting, but who knows? - quite genuinely and ardently seeking - was standing right in front of him. He didn't get it for the same reason we don't get things: growing in our grasp of the ...

I am told that in Christchurch a clergyman went into a shop and was asked by the shopkeeper why the clergyman's boss had sent the earthquake. The clergyman replied that earthquakes are of the earth, but that the acts of bravery and kindness apparent all over the city are the acts of God. It's an answer that got the reverend gentleman off the hook, temporarily at least, but I don't think it would have been a satisfactory answer for the shopkeeper, at least, not when he went home and thought about it later. I suppose my unknown colleague was defending his boss, not that his boss ever needs defending, and was falling for a trap common to us religious people; namely, thinking that God is only in the good bits of life, and therefore, that the not so good bits come from somewhere else: from Not God. We have an example of this thinking in our own much admired New Zealand Anglican Prayer Book. In our psalter, the committee which put the book together saw fit to go through a...