February 2008

Welsh politics blogger David Cornock noticed a significant omission in the Commons’ celebration of St David’s Day
Welsh Secretary Paul Murphy read the lesson at a service in the Chapel of St Mary Undercroft.
He read from Matthew 5: 1-12, and it was well worth checking against delivery.
For some reason, Mr Murphy omitted the sentence “Blessed are [...]

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In Karl Barth and the Pietists: The Young Karl Barth’s Critique of Pietism and Its Response (2004), Eberhard Busch suggests that for Barth there are at least two “prerequisites for being able to talk to each other in the church of Christ, and these two are inextricably linked. First, such a dialogue between Christians, [...]

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A fine post
The purveyors of what I call ‘The Spiritual Prosperity Gospel’ repeat the mantra ‘If you preach the Real Gospel ™, people will flock to your church. ‘ It doesn’t work like that. If the church is short of ministers and it wants more people to serve as ministers, making a realistic job description [...]

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Apparently, I’m a Progressive. Which is nice.
What are you?
via the splendid Dave Faulkner, who is apparently, a moderate. As he says, no doubt the quiz is flawed so there’s no need to take it too seriously.

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Barack Obama will never be good enough, pure enough, or kiss up enough to become President of the United States. He just might win anyway; I hope so. Against the odds and against the rules. This post discusses only rule No. 1. Obama, or any Black presidential candidate must prove, not [...]

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People were awakened in Scotland, Wales and Englnad by a quake measuring5.2 on the Richter scale last night. That’s the biggest quake in the UK in 20 years. The British Geological Survey says it occurred at a depth of 15.4 k and lasted 10 seconds.
It occurred at 12:56 GMT which for those of us [...]

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Via Google Talkabout comes news of the new Google Chatback feature, which allows bloogers to install a Google chat feature on their blog. The blogger needs to have a Google Talk account, but visitors can use it without one. I thought it might be cool to try it out. If it says I’m online, say [...]

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From The Methodist Church News Service
The Methodist Church welcomes today’s Government announcement that they will not grant a supercasino licence. Proposals for supercasinos, also known as regional casinos, have been strongly opposed by The Methodist Church.
Alison Jackson, Team Leader for Public Issues in the Methodist Church, said “we are delighted to hear that the Government [...]

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Actually, it has been since around 1980 that I voted in a presidential election using a stamp and ink pad. And this post isn’t about Obama, but it’ll serve as a “two-fer” putting in a very brief plug for my candidate while going on to discuss the wider issue of the “happiness” of USA [...]

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Dave writes
Last Thursday, I attended the board meeting for Ministry Today, the small journal for church leaders on which I serve. I came away with a few tasks - four more books to review, someone to contact, and a couple of articles to write.
One of those articles is to address the title of this post. [...]

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Apologies to those who found the comment subscription here useful, but I’ve turned it off. Several messages have been bouncing and it’s clogging things up a bit. I’ll try to find an alternative when I’ve a bit of time.

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Picking up on this comment thread, I came across this fascinating article on the reasoning behind the use of what has come to be called waterboarding in the Christian tradition. The author makes a strong case for seeing waterboarding as a perverted inversion of baptism.
In the Inquisition, the practice was not drowning as such, but [...]

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Following Kim’s blogpost yesterday, Aussie theologian Ben Myers quotes Stanley Hauerwas on when it is time to doubt your salvation.
Correction: The original post comes from Halden, who notes that most of Hauerwas’ controversial list relates to the calendar, not the flag.

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Here is an excerpt from “Weeping and Hoping in Jerusalem”, chapter two in Walter Brueggemann’s new book Mandate to Difference: An Invitation to the Contemporary Church (2007). Brueggemann is summarizing his analysis of the city of Jerusalem under King Solomon.
“The core ingredients of the new urban economy of Solomon are expansive building [as a [...]

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Interesting piece in Slate Magazine
Social-media sites like Wikipedia and Digg are celebrated as shining examples of Web democracy, places built by millions of Web users who all act as writers, editors, and voters. In reality, a small number of people are running the show. …
The same undemocratic underpinnings of Web 2.0 are on display at [...]

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REJOICE for a brother deceased,
Our loss is his infinite gain;
A soul out of prison released,
And freed from its bodily chain;
With songs let us follow his flight,
And mount with his spirit above,
Escaped to the mansions of light,
And lodged in the Eden of love.
Our brother the haven hath gained,
Out-flying the tempest and wind,
His rest he hath sooner [...]

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The latest round-up is up.

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I’ve missed my ‘blogday’. Again. February 5th is the official birthday of the blog, for ’twas on that day in 2002 when I decided to stick with the blogging tool that I first installed a little earlier in November 2001. The archive of that month’s posts gave me a smile. I noticed, for example, that [...]

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Ain’t it the truth!
Thanks to Locusts & Honey

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