October 2010

Posted via email from Richard Hall’s perfectly pointless blog

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I’ve linked this before, but it still gives me a laugh.
In The Know: Has Halloween Become Overcommercialized?

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Ye faithful souls, who Jesus know,
If risen indeed with him ye are,
Superior to the joys below,
His resurrection’s power declare.
Your faith by holy tempers prove,
By actions show your sins forgiven,
And seek the glorious things above,
And follow Christ, your Head, to heaven.
There your exalted Saviour see,
Seated at God’s right hand again,
In all his Father’s majesty,
In everlasting pomp [...]

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Only Wonder Understands :: American Decline
In the mid 1960?s of my childhood, America experienced great turmoil as both the movement for Civil Rights and the Vietnam war laid bare the myths of American esteem so prevalent during the Cold War years following World War II. And yet, within the institutions of society — the public [...]

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Let joy abound - my daughter Katie weds!
“Wedding” by Alice Oswald
From time to time our love is like a sail
and when the sail begins to alternate
from tack to tack, it’s like a swallowtail
and when the swallow flies, it’s like a coat;
and if the coat is yours, it has a tear
like a wide mouth and when [...]

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A final reblog for today, posted automatically in anticipation of a lack of ability to blog today.
I was talking to someone recently about the evolution ‘debate’. He got very troubled when I spoke of the first chapter of Genesis as a myth. “If Genesis 1 isn’t true, how can we trust anything the Bible [...]

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This was first blogged in 2005, but I wheel it out from time to time as a reminder to myself
How do Christians debate? Is it fundamentally different from the way that those who profess no faith in Christ conduct their conversations. Anyone whose only knowledge of Christianity comes through the pages of the New Testament [...]

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Another reblog I’m afraid, from the early day of my blogging
One way or another, I’ve been involved in lots of conversations recently about the Bible and how we read it. When Christians disagree, very often the “nub” amounts to a diiferent way of reading the scriptures. There are many approaches to the Bible, but not [...]

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First blogged 28 Jan 2008. The post was written by Kim, re-blogged by Richard.
Richard and I went to a lecture tonight at Swansea University. Given to a packed theatre by Dr. Margie Tolstoy, who teaches at Cambridge, it was entitled “Jewish and Christian Responses to the Holocaust”. As chaplains, Richard and I also [...]

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From the Methodist News Service
Dear Mr Cameron
We are writing to express our concern that a number of recent Government announcements have had the effect of stigmatising the poor, especially those in receipt of out of work benefits. Our experience of working in deprived communities is that life on benefits is often a struggle, with [...]

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Dave Perry on Methodism and The Council of Christians and Jews
For the last decade I have been one of the Joint Presidents of the Lincoln Branch of the Council of Christians and Jews. So when of late there have been accusations in the blogosphere that Methodists are anti-semitic because our annual Conference accepted a report [...]

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How should Christians respond to one another when we find that we have deep disagreements that apparently cannot be reconciled?
One response is simply to shrug and say it doesn’t matter. You go your way and I’ll go mine. Live and let live. In my view, ignoring our differences this way is dishonest and unwise. [...]

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Great post from Angela.
I’m away from my computer for a while. I think (a modicum of) comment moderation had better go on.

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I was thinking of injecting a little Robert Fisk into the ongoing conversation on Israel-Palestine - though after the recent hurling of comment grenades by Hallam’s Army, I use the word “conversation” loosely - and I would no doubt have to jettison it altogether were I to cite Fisk. So I’ll try a little [...]

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Here’s a bit of news I’d missed. Those luvverly people at the English Defence League, a far right group with more than a few links to the BNP, held a demo on Sunday outside the Israeli embassy in London. Apparently in support of Israel.
Siobhan Schwartzberg, writing at Liberal Conspiracy, explains why she organised a counter-demonstration.
The [...]

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Some of the ‘debate’ that’s come out of the Methodist Conference report ‘Justice for Palestine and Israel’ has become very heated (the phrase ‘more heat than light’ springs to mind). The comment has become very personal. And in the process, the central point is being lost. I’d like to return to it if I may. [...]

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Today I had to take my old friend Clovis to the vet for the last time. He died with me stroking his head with one hand while he ate gravy bone biscuits from the other.
He’s been with us for 16 years, a loyal if mostly undemonstrative friend. He was always his own dog — very [...]

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Angela Shier-Jones issues a clarion call: Theology first!
The sad truth is of course that some sections of the British Methodist Church have long since lost Wesley’s love of theology and have managed (with Conference’s consent) to reduce most of the Church’s theological output to a compulsory second section in some Conference reports (and now for [...]

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Churches have voiced concern over Chancellor George Osborne’s inaccurate use of welfare fraud statistics in his Spending Review speech

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