June 2012

Kim’s been doodling over at Faith and Theology again
…there is the cunning plan of traditionalists to play the victim card, i.e., to claim that the church is the target of an aggressive liberal-zeitgeist expansionism. Yes, those poor straight people who suffer abuse and bullying in the West, and in certain East European, African, and Asian [...]

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Jonathan Arkush >> Jewish – Methodist Relations: Concerns Re-Surface
What put our relations back on track was an honest, frank, dedicated, sensitive project of dialogue and joint action, the success of which depended almost entirely on the skills of the Secretary for External Relations and the Inter Faith Officer. If the situation were to [...]

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Former US President Jimmy Carter has attacked the use of drone strikes and targeted assassination
The United States is abandoning its role as the global champion of human rights.
Revelations that top officials are targeting people to be assassinated abroad, including American citizens, are only the most recent, disturbing proof of how far our nation’s violation of [...]

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The Independent: UK ready to take on Israel over fate of children clapped in irons
The Foreign Office revealed last night that it would be challenging the Israelis over their treatment of Palestinian children after a report by a delegation of senior British lawyers revealed unconscionable practices, such as hooding and the use of leg irons.
In [...]

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I can’t explain why, but I found myself singing this theme tune to myself earlier today. So there’s only one thing to do…

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The notion that “the real me” is a soul inhabiting a body of flesh is deeply rooted in Christian believing, but the more I think about it the more troubling I find it.
Partly that’s because it is a notion which is very deeply challenged by recent discoveries about the brain. We know beyond doubt that [...]

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Joel Hoffman in the Huffington Post
The most important commandment, according to Jesus in Matthew 22:37, Mark 12:30, and Luke 10:27 (quoting Deuteronomy 6:5) is commonly, if wrongly, translated as “love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul….”
The English word “heart” refers to emotion, and generally excludes intellect. This is why [...]

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Behold the servant of the Lord!
I wait thy guiding eye to feel,
To hear and keep thy every word,
To prove and do thy perfect will,
Joyful from my own works to cease,
Glad to fulfil all righteousness.
Me if thy grace vouchsafe to use,
Meanest of all thy creatures, me,
The deed, the time, the manner choose,
Let all my fruit be [...]

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Good stuff from Morgan Guyton
I’ve often wondered if the same thing that makes violent video games appealing is why young evangelical guys are so infatuated with penal substitution theology. I figure a scary bad-ass God is cool for the same reason that the loud wet smack of a linebacker knocking the wind out of a [...]

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Forth in thy name, O Lord, I go,
My daily labour to pursue;
Thee, only thee, resolved to know
In all I think or speak or do.
The task thy wisdom hath assigned,
O let me cheerfully fulfill;
In all my works thy presence find,
And prove thy good and perfect will.
Preserve me from my calling’s snare,
And hide my simple heart above,
Above [...]

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Why are places not neutral?
on the smoky screen of walls,
shop windows, sky and pavement spin
the flickering wheels of evidence, dust crawling up
the frames, the privately detected chronicle
of clumsily arranged affairs with time and place.
Grace, yes, but damnation too dissolves
in place, so it is not the future
but the past we know to be incredible,
eluding the imagination: [...]

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The Methodist Church, Baptist Union of Great Britain and United Reformed Church are accusing the Government of continuing a trend of blaming the poor as new proposals to redefine poverty are announced.
“These proposals risk further stigmatising the poor in the eyes of voters and the media,” said Paul Morrison, Public Issues Adviser for the Methodist [...]

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A sermon by Kim Fabricius, reblogged
Cities don’t get a very good press in the Bible. The garden of Eden is the biblical paradigm of peace, order, and well-being. The first biblical city was founded by the fratricide Cain (Genesis 4:17), and ever afterwards cities are suspect for their rebelliousness and defiance of God - [...]

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It’s been a funny old week, involving getting wet at regular intervals. The British summer! Although I’m not much of a lad for flag-waving and so on, I have to say that the Jubilee celebrations were a bit of a highlight. I spent last weekend camping with my scout group. We built a beacon at [...]

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FATHER of everlasting grace,
Thy goodness and thy truth we praise,
Thy goodness and thy truth we prove;
Thou hast, in honour of thy Son,
The gift unspeakable sent down,
The Spirit of life, and power, and love.
Send us the Spirit of thy Son,
To make the depths of Godhead known,
To make us share the life divine;
Send him the sprinkled blood [...]

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God is one, God is three,
not an “it”, “he” or “she”,
but a song, doh, ray, mi:
God is in the singing,
to the rhythm swinging:
Take a chance, chance, chance,
join the dance, dance, dance,
sing the song,
swing along,
to the mystic music.
God is one, God is three,
the divine symphony,
love’s the [...]

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Call me a soppy sod if you must. This stirred my inner romantic. I knew I had one somewhere.
Posted via email from Richard Hall’s perfectly pointless blog

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It’s the Diamond Jubilee weekend, followed by the kids being on half term. Between camps with cubs, scouts and a bit of family time, I’m not expecting to around much for the next week. I’ll probably still post stuff (phone signal permitting), but doubt I’ll have much chance to do any blog admin. I just [...]

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