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I Ask You
Readings In Original Sin
Last night I began reading Alan Jacobs’ Original Sin A Cultural History. This should be an interesting journey. I’m making a concerted effort to wrestle with an idea, a concept, a theory of the human condition that has fascinated and horrified me ever since I first learned about it. To my mind, Augustine’s theory of [...]
How Traditional Are You?
Now here’s an interesting question, and it struck me while doing the morning trawl, one thing led to another led to another and before I knew it I found myself in the website of a convent scanning their FAQ page. What struck me about it was their answer: “This is one of the hardest of [...]
Bad Theology
Here in the UK the Guardian has a regular column called “Bad Science” which exposes . . . well, “bad” science, pseudo science, and “popular science” ideas – like homeopathy. Maggi Dawn has suggested on her blog the brilliant idea of a “Bad Theology” column. So what bad theologies, or pseudo theological ideas would you [...]
Ethics, Food & Theology
I fell into this article this morning while making my rounds. It highlights the impending arrival of Earth Day, and notes the rising number of religious communities reflecting on the links between ethics, environmentalism, our food, and our theology. Today we take our food very much for granted. But this little article was timely not [...]
Real Protest Or . . . .
I’ve been thinking about this bus driver who, last week (I think it was) refused to drive one of London’s new “Athiest busses” because he’s an Evangelical Christian. The story has been reported now on both sides of the Great Pond, but here are two references (A and B) for you to look at and [...]
Theology, Ethics, Suicide – What Is Our OC/IC Perspective?
Here in the UK I’ve been noticing more news items covering issues relating to assisted suicide and euthenasia. I sat down this morning and did a quick survey of the official positions of a number of denomonations to see if they differed, and what was characteristic about each posistion. It then struck me that I’ve [...]
Musing over Modern Marian Titles
I was working on my thesis this morning and while considering aspects’ of Nestorius’ warning about the possible excesses of the title Theotokos – found myself thinking about the Roman Catholic idea of Mary as Mediatrix. I wondered to myself if it was not a bit prophetic on Nestorius’ part to raise issue with the [...]
Talk Amongst Yourselves: I’ve been comitted.
I was reading an article the other day about the famous (imfamous) media campaigner Mary Whitehouse; where she was described as “a comitted Christian”. What struck me was that in the context of the article this was not a good thing – indeed it was a signpost that Mary Whitehouse was barking mad and bloody [...]
Why?
My friend Micki Shirey a UCC pastor in Oregon has a lovely blog here. She’s been “tagged” with a simple, but rather interesting question – why blog? what are the rules? and of course the obligatory tag three others. I’ll start by saying, Chris, John, and Tim are “IT”! Why do I blog? Hmmmmm . [...]
Conversion: A Bit of Reading
You may remember earlier posts here about conversion. I’ve long found it unsettling how the wider OC/IC community does not often encourage, or talk about converting from X to and OC/IC identity. What is interesting is that in a number of the interviews I’ve conducted for the Indie Voices Archive this topic has been raised [...]
Marian Puzzle – Feast of the Presentation II
As we are still in the Feast of the Presentation I got to thinking about a train station. Yes, a train station. Every journey I make into the centre of London I pass “Ladywell” station. Some weeks ago I commented to G that I bet it was named for a well or spring associated in [...]