One Very Important Thought.... at a time

A socio-theological approach to scripture: The World Behind the Word

I’ve been doing some thinking lately on the relationship between History, Theology and the Church. I’ve been irritated by a scholar who argued for theological formation divorced from historical foundation and this morning have recieved a fresh appreciation for Philip F. Esler. I remember encountering Esler’s writings at undergraduate level, and loved a lot of what he had to say, particularly to…

Sacrifice, presence and unity – for the disillusioned, downtrodden, and destitute

Genesis 11 – the flood has shrunk back to the depths of the earth, Noah and his family have received promises from god, and humanity again is thriving. 

The people of earth are growing in number and strength daily, developing as a group, as a community, motivated by ambition of self, claiming that now we can do all things, we are self-sustainable, we are ready to rise to the heavens like god…

Faith and Love are inseparable

“[F]aith (participatory fidelity, loyalty, obedience toward God) reverses the idolatry and hardheartedness that plague the human race, thus fulfilling the covenant’s expectations about relations with God. Love, on the other hand, reverses people’s mistreatment of one another and thus fulfills the obligations of the covenant toward others in the form of cruciform justice. But the two, pistis and…

Co-crucifixion… Thoughts from a dinning room

I have been crucified with Christ, it is no longer I who love but Christ who lives in me. And the life I live, I live by the faithfulness of the Son of God, who loved me by giving himself for me.

– St. Paul

I’ve been thinking about the bizarre events of Paul’s own crucifixion with Christ and quite how that works..

From what I can fathom, it seems to work something along the lines of the…

So these few short paragraphs have developed over the last day or so.. They may seem disjointed or disconnected, but this is the way my head seems to work at present – enjoy!

Christ’s death on the cross is the unified act of faith towards god and love towards humanity. In his death, the law of Moses is fulfilled.

Christianity is a triune declaration of what has been done, what is being done, and…

I’ve been doing some thinking about the Homeric narratives The Iliad and The Odyssey and doing some reading of the first. So thought I would put up some initial thoughts in comparison to the gods and leaders of the bible.

The first thing that struck me…

In many ways, Jesus makes it clear that ministry is a communal and mutual experience… We keep forgetting that we are being sent out two by two. We cannot bring good news on our own. We are called to proclaim the gospel together, in community.

Henri Nouwen

Friend of mine recently posted on his Facebook page ‘everyone is a biblical literalist until you mention Gluttony’. While this statement made me laugh (mostly at myself) it also holds a certain amount of truth.

Through out my time at bible college on of…

“Third event in the St Paul’s Forum series ‘How to Change the World’ – Stanley Hauerwas and Brother Samuel SSF speak on the topic of Peace. Chaired by Canon Mark Oakley, Chancellor of St Paul’s Cathedral”

Needless to say I do not own the rights to this…

Let me start by saying that ideologies and systems of practice which support beliefs should in themselves be held loosely otherwise they run the risk of beginning to dominate, and at the point that structures dominate beliefs I believe we are all in…

“When I get honest, I admit I am a bundle of paradoxes. I believe and I doubt, I hope and I get discouraged, I love and I hate, I feel guilty about not feeling guilty. I am trusting and suspicious. I am honest and I still play games. Aristotle said I am a…

“It remains a startling story to those who never understand that the men and women who are truly filled with light are those who have gazed deeply into the darkness of their imperfect existence.”

  Brennan Manning, The Ragamuffin Gospel, p. 23

“He who loves his dream of community more than the Christian community itself becomes a destroyer of the latter, even though his personal intentions may be ever so honest and earnest and sacrificial.”

  Dietrich Bonhoeffer

“It is the birthright of the Church to show the world what it means to cherish, value, and care for human bodies on an unprecedented level, because we believe both that human beings are made in the image of God and that God touched the ground in human…

“Grace has to be drunk straight: no water, no ice, and certainly no ginger ale.” 

  Robert Capon

“The particular solution God proposes – that of beginning a family and promising them a land – shows that what is wrong concerns, in a central way, the fracturing of human relationships and the fracturing of the relationships between humans and the…

Justification [is] the moment in the present time when one part of creation is put to rights in advance of the final renewal.

NT Wright, Paul: Fresh Perspectives, p. 26