Image of Big Bang seen in piece of toast!

Hot news:

“I have always been an Atheist and to see my life choices validated on a piece of toast is truly astounding,” said one guest at the Huddlesfield Arms Hotel.

It must be a sign…

Today’s News in limerick form, #2

“The manner in which Jesus died
was brutal, it can’t be denied.
To Gentiles it’s foolish -
to Sussex folk, ghoulish.
So… let’s not preach Christ crucified.”

Actually, this news needs a bit more comment. I mean, I can understand – sort of – the nervousness of the church concerned that their sculpture of the crucified Christ might be just so stark that it puts people off, and their impulse that an empty cross might direct people more towards resurrection hope. Part of me is sympathetic to the concern not to “put people off” by having such a “scary” sculpture in the equivalent of the shop window.

But… well, part of me says no, if we are to recognise the depth of God’s love for us then we must allow it to confront us in the fulness of Good Friday’s agony.

The first time I visited Rome and the Vatican was as a teenager. I don’t remember much about the visit, but I do recall the one piece of artwork that struck me more deeply and immediately than any other, from the busts to the Sistine ceiling. It was a small and simple desktop crucifix – wrought iron I think, certainly not gold or silver – upon which the figure of Christ was seen not hanging serenely but jutting his chest forward in agony.

I’d go so far as to say that the image was formative for me. I was strongly reminded of it years later in ministerial training, when I encountered some very similar renditions in the set of images “The Christ We Share”.

An image of Jesus on the cross may well be unpleasant. It may well send shivers down the spine – indeed it surely should. But where will such an image testify more strongly to the truth it depicts: at a church, or in a museum?

Wish list

I’ve never really had the combination of time plus inclination to set up an online wishlist. But if I did, it would have just one item.

This one.

$416 – that’s 240 quid! For the entire Dogmatics? Astonishing! Would probably cost nearly as much again just to ship it, but hey, it’s the Dogmatics… [drool]

[Hat-tip to Ben]

Theological aphorism of the day

Trying to explain the Trinity is like trying to describe the sound of three hands clapping.

“To the ends of the earth, not to the end of our tethers”

Simon Barrow of Ekklesia writes on the missiological aspect of the current strife in the Anglican Communion. We’ve been here before, he says – as early as the first century CE and the angst between Peter and Paul, between Jewish-Christians and Gentile-Christians:

What does all this have to teach us today? Well, it might suggest to us that Jerusalem isn’t always right – or wrong! It might make us ponder the idea that if we take the Bible seriously, then scriptural precedent… should not become an obstacle to the Good News and to God’s gracious work among those we may have come to think of as unclean or unworthy. The mission of Acts is to the ends of the earth, not to the end of our tethers.

An anointed State?

In ancient Jerusalem the dominant description of reality revolved around the conviction that (a) the temple is YHWH’s permanent residence; (b) the monarchy is YHWH’s chosen agent; and therefore (c) the city is safe from and immune to the threats of history. Mutatis mutandis, the dominant description of reality in U.S. society is that (a) democratic capitalism is the wave of the future that is sure to produce peace and prosperity; (b) the United States is God’s chosen agent in the spread of the gospel of democratic capitalism; and (c) the United States is by divine assurance immune to the threats of history. In both ancient Israel and the current sense of self in the United States, there is a theologically rooted exceptionalism that imagines privilege and entitlement of idolatrous proportion… We have, in the U.S. church, spent a very long time ceding over our evangelical voice to accommodation, to an alliance with U.S. exceptionalism and a timid refusal to say what we know most deeply. [W. Brueggemann, The Word Militant (Fortress Press 2007), 18]

Brueggemann writes in and to the contemporary U.S. situation; I as a Briton would be the first to add that his critique applies no less strongly to British colonialism and empire of recent centuries.

Dr Barth and Dr Seuss

The erstwhile Ben Myers has been reading, and asks what Karl Barth and Dr Seuss might have in common. Hmm…

Are your books of any use?
Are they? Are they, Dr Seuss?
Rhymes divine, but logic flimsy:
aren’t your works mere idle whimsy?
Cat in Hat, Things One and Two -
do they speak of what is true?

True, my friend? You ask what’s true?
True is what’s revealed to you.
Logic is not here or there.
Logic won’t go anywhere.
Sometimes what you read won’t fit.
Sometimes that’s the point of it.

Look, here’s Karl. Now gather round:
he will show you what he’s found.
Word is spoken (can you guess?):
God’s big No and bigger Yes.
Yes, I like the Son of Man!
Yes, I choose him, says I Am.

Seuss and Barth and Barth and Seuss:
sauce for gander, sauce for goose.
Thus a simple children’s rhyme
holds a truth to last all time.
Jesus loves me, this I know,
for the Bible tells me so.

Who’d have thought that Fox in Socks
might be neo-orthodox?

Thoughts on Change and Reform

I don’t do “change”.

But not because I’m living in the past, or tied to tradition, or blinkered, or a coward. I don’t do “change” because “change” inherently makes claims about my initiative, my ingenuity.

I don’t even do “reform”.

But not because I’m convinced my way is right, or confident I already have all the answers, or stubborn, or unimaginative. I don’t do “reform” because “reform” inherently makes claims about past ways being incorrigibly wrong ways.

I am reformed. Because God has claimed my past, my present, and my future. I rejoice in the wonders the Father has wrought in my history and the history of my forebears; I watch and listen for the movement of the Holy Spirit today; I seek to place my trust in Christ who leads me onward towards things I don’t yet know.

I am reformed; and by God’s grace I’m not through with being reformed. I am a member of the Body of Christ, the ecclesia reformata, semper reformanda.

Thanks be to God for such profligate grace and mercy.

Divine intervention?

In a short but helpful post, Jonathan hits an important nail on the head:

So, there can be no good answer to the question, “Does God intervene in history?” because the question is so badly framed.

Find out why here.

More on mission and ‘relevance’

There’s some animated discussion on our missional/sociological response to church decline here and here on Connexions, whilst over at Faith and Theology there’s another take on theology and ‘relevance’.

It’s been suggested to me that the point of the missional ‘relevant worship’ strategy is not to deny or lessen the enormity of discipleship’s demands, but rather to attract and draw people in before then inviting them, in effect, to ‘take up their cross’.

But I can’t help observing that the fishermen whom Jesus called, telling them that he would make them fishers for people, worked with boats and nets rather than a line from the shore. They knew nothing of the ‘baited hook’ approach.