Virtual Methodist

For various reasons I haven't watched much of the Jubilee coverage but I did see th is wonderful anecdote by a former close protection officer of the Queen, Richard Griffin , about a time when she went unrecognised by some American tourists near Balmoral. It made me laugh. H e has clearly told this story on a previous occasion or two , understandably, but I hadn't read or heard it before. But it also chimed with a story I told at our Jubilee service in Copelands on Thursday about "The King in Disguise". This was based on the ancient trope of monarchs/princes going out in disguise (like Henry V in the run up to Agincourt in the Shakespeare play, as pictured in a 2015 RSC production) to see what life is like for their people. This seemingly has happened in real life relatively recently  BBC News | MIDDLE EAST | Jordan's king of disguise . I told it  together with the story of the sheep and the goats in Matthew 25 and Mother Teresa's description of the poor as Je...

I was doing my monthly stint on Downtown Radio's Sunday Morning Show "Dawn Reflections" this week, doing a review of the week's news (I'll post that later) and flicking through the morning papers... Of course they were overwhelmingly about the election and the chaos caused by the Icelandic volcanic eruption... but one small comment I missed was in Atticus' column on in the Northern Irish Edition of the Sunday Times... It regards the launch last week of the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development's "sheep and goat identification inspections." Is this, together with the apocalyptic events in Iceland, a sign of the end times? Cheers

Now those who know me, either in the real or the virtual world, will probably have guessed by now that I am a constant advocate for Christian social engagement and social justice, and one of the Biblical passages that I often refer people to is Matthew 25: 31-46 ; what some people refer to as the parable of the "Sheep and the Goats", but is actually a reference to some future time of judgement when Christ will divide the nations as if dividing "sheep and goats." However, after reading the exegesis offered by "Chaplain Mike" over on iMonk today, I'm not so sure that I will use this passage to the same ends again. He argues that "the least of these brothers of mine" is actually a reference to the church and that this is a parable concerning the judgment of the nations in relation to how they responded to the message and needs of the church. Given the likely context of Matthew's Gospel, which, many suggest was written to a Jewish Christian g...

My son Owain and I are at that stage when he is deeply embarassed if I show any signs of liking the same music as he does... So apologies to him on this one. I am not in trying to portray myself as in any way cool (or whatever the current term is); for proof of that see the fact that last week I posted a blog on a Sting song! You don't get much less cool than that. I was depressed, what can I say... But this week I was listening to one of his recent purchases "Sam's Town" by The Killers, and the song "When You Were Young" leapt out at me... Not only because it is a cracking pop/rock track but because of the lyrics. I suppose I'm now psychologically conditioned to prick up my ears for those times when the name "Jesus" is used in any way bar a swearword, and this song contains the line: "He doesn't look a thing like Jesus..." Most of the lyrics in the song are frankly indecipherable, and a visit into the blogosphere on the subject w...