I am pretty well finished writing another book. The topic this time is the meaning of freedom from a Biblical perspective.

One of the things I’ve been wrestling with is the fact my freedom is restricted by the people around me. You could say “Welcome to the pandemic!” But it’s more the case that the pandemic has provided an opportunity to find out something the Bible teaches but we often ignore because we don’t like it.

For the past year governments around the world have been trying to control a public health emergency by curtailing liberties most of us would never have thought we would have to give up.

In an authoritarian state like China, the government simply imposes what measures it wants and people have to submit. In democratic nations, it’s a little harder than that. You have to persuade people to go along.

Pressure reveals the person.

It’s always when things are tough and the stress piles on that what’s underneath emerges.

When all our kids were young and I was running a church office out of my home, the phone often rang right in the middle of some kind of family pandemonium. Our daughter Anna used to yell “Quiet!” at the top of her lungs, then in the ensuing moment of silence would pick the phone up with an ultra-competent voice saying, “Campbell’s. How can I help you?” No one ever knew what had been going on a split second before.

Please tell me I’m not the only person this has happened to!

I was due to take a zoom call and the guy I was talking to had even reminded me a couple hours before. Then distraction hit. I was trying to finish my income tax return, got lost in the detail and missed the call. Thankfully he’s a merciful man and we’ll be able make up the call later.

When it comes to doing church in our culture, one very strange but true observation can be made: it’s amazing how much we can do without God.

When you have access to financial resources, a decent building, good sound equipment and a preacher who can either stir the crowd up or make them feel good, you can do quite a lot without ever involving God in the process.