Virtual Methodist

Just a quickie to point up two interesting pieces on Libby Purves' column Faith Central. The first points to a movement urging prayer at the petrol pumps here in America... Which is typical... Don't bother your ass doing anything yourself to conserve the resources of the earth that God put into your stewardship... Just pray that God will bail you out. Not just typical of America and its attitude to fuel, but to western Christianity and its attitude to God. Anyway... by comparison to the US, back in the UK we don't need a short prayer meeting but a 24/7 prayer vigil... and it will probably only be a short time before someone suggests one. Then she picks up on a 1969 interview with John Lennon which the Sunday programme on BBC Radio 4 broadcast this week (Radio 4 keeping up its reputation for being topical and up to date) in which he explains his "We're bigger than Jesus" comment about the Beatles, which was widely castigated at the time (and responded t...

At the end of this month I am heading off to the US on 5 week exchange programme with Rev. Dr. Geoffrey Hayes from Grand Rapids in Michigan, and one of the things I have been at pains to explain to him is the colossal price of fuel here… Americans are worried about it being just under $4 a gallon there, whereas it is thought that is may top the equivalent of $13 per gallon here by the end of the summer. So I hope his heart doesn’t give out when he finds that it might cost him as much as $140-150 to fill up my car… Now for the sake of the planet we could probably do with burning less oil… But the world as we currently know and enjoy it is entirely dependent upon petro-chemicals… And its increasing price is creating huge waves right across society. Airlines are going out of business or putting enormous fuel supplements on pre-booked flights… Lorry drivers are protesting because the rising costs may cripple their industry too… causing knock-on effects at the supermarkets, who have essenti...