Can We Make Poverty History?

Pray for Gordon Brown, Chancellor of the Exchequer in the UK Government (i.e., finance minister): he has a bold plan to attack world poverty, announced today. There is the inevitable opposition from the USA (so much for wanting to be biblica, Dubya). But even on top of that there is also the issue of changing hearts and attitudes long-term: even if we wipe out the debt that paralyses so much of the developing world we still leave in place the structures of power that can soon disable them. Don’t we?

Thanks to Paul Roberts for the link.

0

The Urgent Need To Distinguish Evangelicalism And Bible Teaching From Fundamentalism

Maggi Dawn has today posted an extract from one of Keith Ward’s books on this subject. Ward isn’t a natural ally of my theological thinking these days, but this post calls out a ‘Hallelujah’ from me. Someone, somewhere, understands the differences between thoughtful evangelicalism and harsh fundamentalism. Now if only our media understood that.

0

The Dickens Festival

Today was my day off. I had to lose part of it to take a funeral this morning, but we made up for it this afternoon by taking our two small children to Medway Council’s Dickens Festival in Rochester. We all had ice creams, Rebekah had a balloon and some rides at the fun-fair.

I didn’t want to turn into a parody of Dickens’ great literary creation Scrooge and so wouldn’t begrudge our kids the great fun they had, but as we walked back to the car we discussed the savage irony: the festival purportedly celebrates Charles Dickens (who lived much of his life in the area), the passionate social reformer who cared greatly about the exploitation of the poor. Just how fitting is it, then, that his name is just the label on a tourist attraction, where the real highest value is not concern for the poor but the desire to make money?

0

Spurs Set To Discover Europe Fate

See BBC report here: Spurs missed out on a UEFA Cup place by a small margin in terms of Premiership position. Sunday is the big day to discover whether we qualify under the Fair Play rules. I’m not sure we quite deserved qualification in the end on the grounds of our form: we lost as many games as we won (as was often the case when Hoddle and Graham were the managers), but we had fewer drawn games than many and a positive goal difference, putting us in the top half. Every time we looked like getting an automatic place we shot ourselves in the foot with a bad result against a struggling team. If we do get in by the back door it will be a bonus, and it’s certainly better than fighting relegation!

0

The Sour Milk Of Human Kindness

Got back last week from a wonderful family holiday on a farm in North Devon called Torridge House. Twice we visited the nearest large town, Barnstaple. This meant driving to the Park and Ride, where we caught the bus. Unlike Park and Rides for other towns, you couldn’t fold down and stash your baby buggy anywhere, you had to take it on the bus unfolded – very awkward and uncomfortable. What amazed us was how naturally and without asking local people using the service took one of our two buggies on for us while we struggled with two small children and shopping, sat with the buggy and took it off at the destination. It seemed so foreign to what we are used to living in the urban sprawl of Medway. We’re not denying that simple acts of human kindness happen here, they do, but they are rarer, even with many more people living here. It made us hanker for a move some time to the south west (especially after having talked to some locals, too). I’m hardly biased against the urban context, as I am a born and bred Londoner, but it makes we wonder what we’ve lost in urbanisation that makes it so soulless. And don’t say it’s a London or a south-east thing, because I encountered the same soullessness when I studied in Manchester. Other than that, all thoughts welcome!

0

George MacDonald

Amazing article about George MacDonald, the twentieth century Christian novelist, at the Christian History subsite within Christianity Today. His thinking was way ahead of what has been coming out of the ’emerging church’ about the presence of God throughout life and within culture.

Here are a couple of extracts:

“Life and religion are one, or neither is anything,” he insisted. Incensed by seeing professing Christians intellectually assent to Christian doctrine while still adhering to secular attitudes and patterns of life, he dedicated his ministry to demonstrating that Christian truth is at the very heart of life. Life itself is constantly trying to teach that unity. “The same God who is in us … also is all about us—inside, the Spirit; outside, the Word,” he remarked, “and the two are ever trying to meet in us.” That is, every aspect of the created universe and of human experience comes from God. Rightly received, all of life is a vehicle of grace.

Stories, MacDonald discovered, are an ideal means for showing people the sacramental character of life. A prolific writer, he composed poetry, novels, and fairy tales for both children and adults, as well as sermons, essays, and works of literary criticism—over 50 books in all. A shrewd and discerning student of his own life’s experiences, both those of joy and those of grief, he portrayed the truths he discovered in his large gallery of characters. He was careful to teach nothing that his own life did not exemplify.

0

She Must And Shall Go Free

I’ve been listening to the first solo CD by former Caedmon’s Call member Derek Webb, ‘She Must And Shall Go Free’. (I know it came out two years ago but I’m catching up.) It’s a concept album based on the theme of the Church as the Bride of Christ. The final track is called ‘The Church’ and the chorus pulled me up:

‘cause i haven’t come for only you
but for my people to pursue
you cannot care for me with no regard for her
if you love me you will love the church

It made me think of a number of my posts on the old blog: for example, How Stupid Is The Church Of England? or It’s All About Who, Jesus? I can be very caustic about the Christian Church. I often need the reminder that my criticisms must be for love of the Church, whom Webb describes in what old-fashioned people like me who remember vinyl LPs used to call the sleeve-notes as “both wretched and radiant”. Uncritical, no, but critical out of loyalty and love. And hopefully with three fingers pointing back at me, too.

Thanks Derek for the reminder.

0

The Gospel According to eBay

We’re getting ready to move house soon, and have lots of stuff to sell. Much of it is going on eBay. Today I had an email from them, congratulating me on getting my fifth positive feedback. ‘Only five more to go,’ they say, ‘and you’ll have your first Feedback Star!’ (Mmm, can’t wait.)

Then comes the theology. Yes: theology. ‘Your Feedback reinforces the eBay value that ‘People are basically good.”

My Christian ears pricked up at this, and so I looked up the values. They’re very positive:

We believe people are basically good.
We believe everyone has something to contribute.
We believe that an honest, open environment can bring out the best in people.
We recognise and respect everyone as a unique individual.
We encourage you to treat others the way you want to be treated.
In reverse order, they’re pretty Christian. Treat others how you want to be treated sounds pretty Christlike. Respecting everyone as an unique individual for me comes from humans being created ‘in the image of God’. An open, honest environment reminds me of Paul’s words about ‘speaking the truth in love’. Everyone having something to contribute is redolent of the idea that all have gifts.

The difficult one for many Christians is the first one, where I came in: ‘People are basically good’. Classically we’ve said ‘People are basically bad’. But as one of the characters in Brian McLaren’s novel ‘The Last Word And The Word After That’ says,

“I’m not denying the old doctrine of original sin, but it can be abused in a way that shifts the focus away from human injsutice, oppression, and suffering on Planet Earth. It shifts the focus to getting your hiundquarters into heaven after you leave Planet Earth. So it makes you worry less about how bad humanity is and more about how mad the deity is.”

So there has been a shift in more postmodern thinkers to a creation-centred spirituality, but which runs the equal and opposite danger of under-estimating the human capacity for evil. Just how do we keep the two in tension? It’s one of those paradoxes with which Christians always need to live.

1

We’ve Only Just Begun?

Hi, and welcome to the new location for my blog. Previously this appeared mainly at this place and sporadically here, but Modblog wasn’t right for me and Blogger was altogether too unreliable. So here I am at Typepad, given that several blogs I enjoy appear here and look rather better than my previous efforts. I’ll post something more substantial soon, but it’s late at night now and so I wish you goodnight.

0

Create a website or blog at WordPress.com

Up ↑