Second of two interviews with Calum MacKellar on his new book. Calum is Director of Research of the Scottish Council on Human Bioethics, Edinburgh, and Visiting Lecturer of Bioethics at St. Mary's University, London, UK.

Birthday musings, living, and dying … what is important in life? Really? It has to be Jesus and the Gospel!

The kingdom of God is not a game. The law teaches us how to love others as God first loved us. Our performance matters, but in God’s kingdom belonging comes before performance.

• Man who tore down cross on Baptist church 'committed religiously-aggravated offence', court hears • Going to church? Is it like taking drugs? • Archaeologists uncover huge new cache of unopened sarcophagi dating back 2,500 years at Saqqara • HS2 dig at abandoned church finds graffiti linked to warding off evil spirits • Coronavirus pandemic showed how much we need hospital chaplains

“Blessed are…” Nothing in a life blessed by Jesus is unfruitful, futile, wasted or vain. Everything in the life He blesses somehow works toward an eternal goodness that is embodied in the embattled life of the prophets and in Jesus' life, teaching, death and resurrection.